IMO, there's a middle ground we can go between slow PoW on L1 and scaleability. I think that it can be done by having tools that give us the same guarantees like deploying a smart contract on the main chain. It's difficult to explain: But what I want is Plasma but as a framework to develop dapps.
This project is going that route: https://github.com/hoytech/quadrable
Honestly, I see no use for Ethereum (or other Turing Complete L1s) looking forward — smart contracts can be purely peer-to-peer, with the only pressure applied to L1 being dispute resolution. By pushing complex contracts up into Layer 2, we can keep the dangerous, money-destroying, theft-enabling Turing machines away from the main chain.
[0]: https://fabric.pub
Well Eth 2.0 is applying the latest and the greatest in Crypto research to a real coin.
In terms of scalabliltiy Ethereum is already way past bitcoin slow transaction rates.
Eth2 isn't a different currency, it's a replacement system that links with Eth1 to provide continuity. The ETH coins are not being replaced; both systems transact in ETH and are linked. That's why they are being careful with how it's evolved and how the economic links and incentives, and smart contracts and data sources, are set up in the transition.
There are many changes being implemented through this evolution. From PoW to PoS, single chain to cross-linked sharding (while managing the incentives to maintain the integrity of the network), various improvements to faster synchronisation, lower storage requirements, distributed storage of the state.
Being able to release v2, v3, v4 of software while staying compatible with all the work you did using v1 is a good thing. Same idea with evolving Ethereum.
Contrast it with the numerous new coin networks that use newer cryptographic ideas but each start their own separate networks. That's also evolution, but they don't provide continuity in the same way; instead they are a series of competing products.
For the same reason that a startup with duct-tape code, scrambling to scale is better than a startup with no genuine demand.
> Instead, we need an approach for the average Joe developer to create their idea within the Ethereum ecosystem without the need for hardcore unproven technologies.
So instead of fixing the actual problem, Ethereum scalability, we will do what? This technology was developed by a few guys, most of them already left. It was meant to fix Bitcoin "smart contracts" (there is a such thing).
Tech behind Ethereum is outdated. Even newer versions rehash the same broken idea with sharding. We got 10 years and billions poured into consensus research. There are actual papers and universities doing this stuff. There are github projects that do stuff like decentralized auctions, mixers...