The ideal is that the end state of L2s will have them fully inheriting Ethereums security and decentralization. But, right now none are as secure or decentralized as Ethereum L1. There are 26x different L2s all competing for market share. I remain highly

Ethereum was my first dip into smart contract layer-1's, it's ideals are nice, and I love Vitalik, but it was too expensive to use. It feels exclusionary to me. If you have to be wealthy to simply transact or use it in any meaningful way how will it ever be used by the world?

Im genuinely interested in a good faith discussion. If at the foundation the protocol becomes exclusionary to simply use the network, how is it any different than traditional finance? If the developing world and poor cannot use it. Is it not just a speculative playground for the privileged?

The Ethereum space has been working really hard to address this.

L2s supposedly inherit the security of Ethereum. They centralize execution and everybody else can verify that they followed the rules by verifying a validity proof or by going through a fraud proof period. Right now rollups are not fully matured, but this is where Ethereum is going. All of them finalize on Ethereum and inherit security. What is centralized and has controls are the sequencers and provers (whether zk or fraud).

Will it ever actually get there? Well, how long did the merge take? Many years, and many delays. These things are future ideals and may or may not ever happen.

So, there are 26++ different L2's. So let's say I choose one of the L2's, all the smart contracts and funds I transfer to this L2 are silo'd from all the rest. How do I choose which L2 to use?

https://l2beat.com/scaling/risk

Each L2 has it's own trade offs and risk.

I'm supposed to as a consumer analyze 26 different scaling solutions and HOPE that I picked the best one? Each one with their own trade offs and risks? The top five L2's can change there code arbitrarily without any notice or consent. When people say L2's inherit Ethereum's security, what they don't tell you is that this is the HOPE of the END STATE of the L2. Currently, you do not have the same security, not even close.

Each L2 is competing for market share of the L2 space, right? Some have their own tokens? So I invest in the wrong L2 that breaks or loses a ton of market share? My funds are worthless or gone?

I just find it hard to believe that any average consumer or non tech geek will ever sit and DYOR to use an L2. The process is confusing, convoluted, and full of risk. None of this is present when you stay on an L1.

Some will say:

There are no scalable L1s that are credibly neutral. If you want to scale L1 well you're gonna have big server instances to be able to run a node. There are limits to scalability.

This just seems like sunk cost fallacy thinking. L2's are not the silver bullet for scaling ETH because the trade offs are great and each L2 is a silo that is walled off from all the rest which creates enormous logistical problems and risk.