In a way, it is a sign a maturity. The good old days of 0 BTC transaction fees are now behind us. Similar to having unprotected sex in the "70s, before the AIDS epidemic ... Who would think nowadays to have sex with strangers without a condom... The ability to do a single financial transaction across the world with an untrusted counter-party for $0.015 (0.00005 BTC) is still "priceless", in comparison...
I still believe that the ultimate fix will be to force a minimum fee for each output (like in Litecoin), the current minimum fee per transaction (with unlimited outputs) does not solve the problem, nor an increase of the block size (not before the users of the system show more discipline).
The leaches currently sucking up the Bitcoin bandwidth should pay for it: on-blockchain casino systems, mixing services, colored-coins, OP_RETURN solutions, spams, faucets, etc. Only once they will pay for their share (with minfee per outputs) - then it will be worth while to discuss moving to a "fiber optic" solution, and increase the Bitcoin bandwidth ... @gavinandresen
By then, the miners might listen and agree...
I already agree with you.
Multiple transactions in one transaction are still multiple transactions. You pay for every advertising letter you send via regular mail, regardless of you bring all of them to post office in a big box.
But the minfee you mention? 0.00005 Bitcoin work today? I always paid 0.0002 Bitcoin the last days. Whats needed?
I dont like the way things are enforced. You know Bitcoin was built to go away from centralization and ruling over the currency. Now someone, maybe a group of miners, is enforcing a higher fee and a higher block size. Its somewhat like banks that make the rules and the poor users have to follow. I dont like that thought.