the congestion really has only just begun. if it persists, yes, ppl will start to stop using Bitcoin. the exit starts slowly at first and then will morph into a stampede; especially if the price starts plunging. the mempool is a problem that does have to be fixed so that ordinary users can start getting their tx's through. they won't be as patient as some of us here.
Hi doc. I can't help but notice with each passing day you sound more like a Buttcoiner.
Specifically, Jorge Stolfi - the Buttcoiner's big fat smart-bug:
The "new devs" are impatient for the network to saturate so that the "fee market" will arise, and they have invented several spiffy gadgets to handle it that they are dying to use. No matter how people explain, they don't want to understand that
* even 80% of saturation would render the use of bitcoin a nightmare, driving users away from bitcoin and stopping its growth well before full saturation.
* when the traffic will stop growing, say at ~80% of capacity in daily average, the "traffic jams" will arise erratically at peak hours and at random variations of demand and supply;
* the queue lengths will vary pretty fast during a jam, and will be emptied in a few hours;
* the fees will be useless outside of the jams;
* the right fees will be impossible to predict during a jam, because each jam will be different, the queue status will vary too fast;
* the right fee that you should use to be among the first 2500 entries of the queue that will get into the next block depends on the 3000 transactions that will be issued in the next 10 minutes, by 3000 clients who are trying to choose a fee that will put their transactions ahead of yours;
* twidding the fees will not reduce the average delay by one second, only make everybody spend more money and make the individual delays more unpredictable;
* many clients will end up paying much more than the standard fee, only to wait more than if the transactions were processed first-come, first served;
* most clients -- espcially those who issue important transactions -- have better things to do with their time than sit two hours watching the queues and playing the silly "fee hopscotch" game.
It is useless to point out to them that no business in the world, from lemonade stands to airline manufacturers, uses (or could use) anything remotely like this bizarre pricing mechanism. It is useless to explain to them that the "fee market" will not be a "fRee market", because they have this silly libertarian definition of "free market" as "a market without government regulations".
Unfortunately, they are so detached from the real world, so fired up with the "fee market" fantasy, and so anxious to see their toys at work -- that they cannot even understand how that "fee market" will transform the act of paying something with bitcoin from a mildly complicated routine into an absolutely stupid, lengthy, incomprehensible and frustrating game.
They are like kids who set fire to the house because they want to play firemen and put the filre out with their water guns.
Bitcoin has been dead for more than a year, and was very sick before that. What is still twitching there is a bizarre and terribly expensive payment system that resembles bitcoin, and works like it for some puroses; but with a crucial difference -- it depends on 5 people not having bad ideas.
* even 80% of saturation would render the use of bitcoin a nightmare, driving users away from bitcoin and stopping its growth well before full saturation.
* when the traffic will stop growing, say at ~80% of capacity in daily average, the "traffic jams" will arise erratically at peak hours and at random variations of demand and supply;
* the queue lengths will vary pretty fast during a jam, and will be emptied in a few hours;
* the fees will be useless outside of the jams;
* the right fees will be impossible to predict during a jam, because each jam will be different, the queue status will vary too fast;
* the right fee that you should use to be among the first 2500 entries of the queue that will get into the next block depends on the 3000 transactions that will be issued in the next 10 minutes, by 3000 clients who are trying to choose a fee that will put their transactions ahead of yours;
* twidding the fees will not reduce the average delay by one second, only make everybody spend more money and make the individual delays more unpredictable;
* many clients will end up paying much more than the standard fee, only to wait more than if the transactions were processed first-come, first served;
* most clients -- espcially those who issue important transactions -- have better things to do with their time than sit two hours watching the queues and playing the silly "fee hopscotch" game.
It is useless to point out to them that no business in the world, from lemonade stands to airline manufacturers, uses (or could use) anything remotely like this bizarre pricing mechanism. It is useless to explain to them that the "fee market" will not be a "fRee market", because they have this silly libertarian definition of "free market" as "a market without government regulations".
Unfortunately, they are so detached from the real world, so fired up with the "fee market" fantasy, and so anxious to see their toys at work -- that they cannot even understand how that "fee market" will transform the act of paying something with bitcoin from a mildly complicated routine into an absolutely stupid, lengthy, incomprehensible and frustrating game.
They are like kids who set fire to the house because they want to play firemen and put the filre out with their water guns.
Bitcoin has been dead for more than a year, and was very sick before that. What is still twitching there is a bizarre and terribly expensive payment system that resembles bitcoin, and works like it for some puroses; but with a crucial difference -- it depends on 5 people not having bad ideas.
Besides the trivial 'Buttcoin' vs 'Cripplecoin' choice of vocabulary and your lacking their keen sense of puckish humor, you seem to agree with most/all of their Standard Litany of Reasons Why Butt/Cripple-coin Has Failed, Is Failing, and Will Fail.
Any thoughts on this? Perhaps you should take your ball, go home, and become the LeBron of Buttcoin!
"Unfortunately", it is still (and always was) only a minor part of my crypto portfolio. I believe mostly in Bitcoin in terms of store of value. So it wasn't too hard to be patient all along. 