These days we can see many projects are launching on Ethereum | ChainHedge

These days we can see many projects are launching on Ethereum L2 solutions or just side networks. Indeed that current ETH network fees are way too hard to handle for newcomers, so underfunded users have no choice but to use such solutions. But the tendency is pretty much obvious, that if the Dapp layer protocol can't perform well on the L1 Ethereum network dealing with users who can pay high fees, it most likely will fail on cheaper networks.

Also, the quality of projects which focus on L2 is usually very poor or has a clear intention to scam people since underfunded users usually have fewer competencies and less demand on security. If you launch a decent project it is obvious that you will focus on L1 first and make it accessible for the most available liquid market and cross-contract interactions. Only when it will be successful on L1, you would migrate it to other networks. The opposite strategy is usually a good indication of just trying to find a way to survive with a low-quality product. L1 protocols forks from another side use working models which already proved their efficiency. But we have to keep in mind that new "developers" didn't put significant effort to launch it, so by default they are much less valuable and a much higher risk of scam.

I assume that there could be exceptions in applications less related to financial use-cases which need a high amount of low-cost transactions, but the scalability problem is not solved yet. Lack of users on side networks can't be an indicator of good network performance as well.