[kragen]

When I checked 6 days ago, the median Bitcoin transaction fee in the last block was US$0.25, so it looks like you picked an unreliable source for your transaction-fee information: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27337189

(Also, there were transactions in that block that paid much lower fees than that, but some of them might be CPFP or something.)

That comment also explains how people in poor and middle-income countries use Bitcoin in practice, at least in some cases, even though transaction fees are usually higher than that. If you read it, you will understand the answer to your question to some degree.