With LN, sure we're in the early days still. There was another layer 2 idea floated recently called Coin Pools, anyone see that? Sounded interesting, still didn't check the detailed information about it.
if your talking about taproot 'payment pools' well thats what the 'factories' in LN will be using
not to pay out to individuals. but to get individuals to deposit funds into this custodian(pool) and then the custodian uses taproot so that when the timelocks expire they can settle the channels. broadcast the taproot contract on the blockchain, and create new channels all without revealing the individual amounts each holder has on the blockchain
the issue is these contracts are very bloaty. and gmax knows this which is why he wanted to extend the 'witness' area so much(pretending 4m is still 1mb cludgy code)
the stupid thing is if a user just wants out. and is unco-operative with the 'pool' then the hidden funds get untangled and all is revealed for that user to claim whats theirs independantly.
so the whole purpose is to keep funds in and just using the blockchain to close-reopen channels.
meaning its only a success if people never want out.
talk with the devs is to offer people alternate currencies like LTC as their 'get out' so that it does not harm the taproot contract of hiding the true individual values
other devs are thinking of this factory/payment pool concept for their own private 'reserve banking' between exchanges and not on the main LN.
but payment/coin pools have been a idea(factories) for a while now and its this kinda crap where the individuals become relient on pool/factory managers/custodians. while also turning the blockchain into an unaudible cludge of misrepresented data. that will harm bitcoin