As of now, the fee is approx. ~60 satoshi/byte for a reasonable timeframe which gives the total transaction fee of a normal transaction to be $0.50. Isn't that cheaper than a lot of the payment processors?
Ordinary people aren't very tech savy and don't care about satoshi/byte. I moved funds lately. I believe I spent $5 to move approximately $55 and a higher fee to move a bigger number. In comparison with FIAT I am way satisfied but if I compare it with other altcoins (BCH, BSV, dogecoin) that i moved too then there is no comparison for the same amount.
In the future with the reduced block reward without x2 bitcoin price before and after the halving then miners compensation will be based on fees. Segwit was a good step but not enough imo.
You overpaid.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_feeAs you can see the average tx fee is below 2.5 USD so it's possible to send coins much cheaper than for $5.
I know that sometimes you don't have a choice and have to pay whatever the business you're dealing with is charging you for a transaction but most of us use our own wallets and can adjust the fee.
Let's not mix the fees we pay in a casino to withdraw with the network fees for a normal transaction.
No, don't worry I wasn't mixing
As I said I moved some funds, at first I didn't pay attention to fees and used the standard one until I realised that I was indeed paying too much. Used 2 integrated exchanges in my wallet later and was able to adjust fees to a reasonable amount in one of it. However since I moved multiple cryptocurrencies (not much amount), fees paid with BTC after adjustment are still high comparing to other crypto fees but still better than FIAT.
Anyway, what i want to say is that bitcoin is the best payment option that i could have, however the weakest points are: speed + fees, better than FIAT for sure but slowwwer and more expensive than other cryptocurrencies, which i believe that it needs to be fixed so adoption could rise exponentially!
Edit:
Ordinary people aren't very tech savy and don't care about satoshi/byte. I moved funds lately. I believe I spent $5 to move approximately $55 and a higher fee to move a bigger number.
5$ for a relatively standard transaction with 2 inputs and 2 outputs (legacy) is more than 140 sat/B. And if you used segwit, 180 sat/B. You heavily overpaid.
Currently 1-2 sat/B are enough to get your transaction confirmed within a few blocks. That's roughly 0.02 USD for segwit and 0.03-0.04 USD for legacy.
Which wallet did you use?
Either your wallet estimated the fee poorly (which almost always is the case) or you chose a way too high fee by your own.
Even when the fees spike (like 1 - 2 weeks ago), a fee of 20-30 sat/B was enough to get your transaction confirmed in a reasonable timeframe.
Definitely my mistake for not adjusting fees in Electrum. Generally I used standard fees but now I feel I was robbed (not)
I was pressured to fix something, moved funds and made several mistakes (fees, almost losing a crypto funds...). Luckily I realised what happened when everything calm down