[ceallen]

Individual transaction fees are being heavily, heavily subsidized by block rewards currently. Just eyeballing the current numbers:

~400 transactions per block, 25 btc reward, ~500 usd / btc gives a transaction cost of 31 dollars each.

What happens to fees when mining rewards taper off? Just authoritatively stating "it'll be fixed" blindly pushes these problems into the future.

[natrius]

It'll be fixed. Or something will outcompete Bitcoin. That's what markets do. Blockchain technology has eliminated the barrier to entry to compete on transaction fees.

[Natanael_L]

Transaction count will go up, and nothing says the value given to miners must stay the same. It is fine if some miners leave due to unprofitability.