> Once many of these channels are established you can start to establish a connection. For instance if I have 12 bitcoins in my own wallet I might keep ~1 BTC l

> Once many of these channels are established you can start to establish a connection. For instance if I have 12 bitcoins in my own wallet I might keep ~1 BTC locked up to a connection to coinbase. This is old news and all you are doing is giving up decentralization to coinbase. The alternative is opening a "lightning channel" to every store which in this case does not solve the slow transaction problem.