Nano has alwas has a computational part associated with transactions. It once was used to prioritize transactions. Nano has evolved to a different prioritization scheme. That computational part will be phased out.

We’ll see. It had to be “phased in” in the first place for a reason. Either you limit chain space and charge for it, or your chain grows an infinite size. There is no way around that problem.

And how would you have cheap transactions without those middlemen, if operating your own channels requires transactions on layer 1?

Because once a channel is opened, you can have essentially infinite transactions within it. So there is not a 1:1 relationship between channel opening/closing costs (layer 1) and transaction relaying costs (lightning). You need the layer 1 underneath to provide the security for the lightning transactions. Without layer 1, if somebody you are transacting with doesn’t follow the rules, you have no way to enforce the rules. Incentives are setup in such a way that it’s incredible rare you ever need to to go L1 to get that enforcement, since the deck is stacked against anybody who tries to break the rules.