Lightning *depends* on global consensus in order to function. You can't use it without a global consensus network at all. So given that there is absolutely a place for a global consensus network, we need to decide whether the cost to participate in that global consensus will be limited above or below the capability of technology. In a world where anybody can step up and fork the code, it's going to be hard for anyone to artificially set the price of participating in global consensus at a rate higher than what technology can deliver...

On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 1:51 PM, Bryan Bishop <kanzure@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 1:46 PM, Michael Naber via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Note that lightning / hub and spoke do not meet requirements for users
> wishing to participate in global consensus, because they are not global
> consensus networks, since all participating nodes are not aware of all
> transactions.

You don't need consensus on the lightning network because you are
using bitcoin consensus anyway. Commitment transactions are deep
enough in the blockchain history that removing that transaction from
the history is impractical. The remaining guarantees are ensured by
the properties of the scripts in the transaction. You don't need to
see all the transactions, but you do need to look at the transactions
you are given and draw conclusions based on the details to see whether
their commitments are valid or the setup wasn't broken.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507