You can get a 24TB hard drive off Amazon for less than $500. The blockchain is already nearly 1TB - I had to upgrade the drive in my laptop to use it anyway. I think delaying the problem would have been good, since Bitcoin still isn't even close to hitting the point of being used as an actual currency. But that is a lost battle. The point is that Lightning is a premature optimization. If people were using Bitcoin to buy coffee so much it congested the network, then it would be a great problem to have. We would be a great shape in terms of adoption. But people are not even ready for that yet. We're like 20 years in the future, and sometimes I think we have to step back and look at today.