Wider utilisation does mean more transactions, so it does effect the volume of transactions.
Well, let me repeat to you, in other words: increase/decrease in the volume of transactions is not directed correlated to wider utilization. There can 1000000 users doing 100 transactions per second, as there can be 100 users doing 1000000 transactions per second. Do you got it? So your claim is far from accurate. Wider utilizations can mean more or less transactions.
The percentage of transactions which include a fee, if any, is determined by:
...and what percentage is that?
Pool operators' willingness to changed their bitcoind settings to prioritise fee paying transaction fees.
That will not happen. The tendency is pay less fees as possible.
Wallet developers' UI designs coaxing users to pay a higher fee.
That is happening, but it will find resistance to increase to a point where transactions fees are bigger than the block reward.
Payment gateways (such as Bitpay) doing the same.
That have nothing to do with the transaction fees discussed since payment gateways are not "miners".
No need to go point by point. Utilisation can mean anything you want it to. If more people start using Bitcoin and buying and selling more goods the number and sum value of transactions will increase. This sounds like a good definition to me :-)
You can create SatoshiDice examples which work the other way and use that prove your point if you want.
I don't have the tools to calculate the percentage of transactions which include a fee. Do you? I asked the very same question on the developer forum:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/selectively-choosing-transactions-to-be-included-in-a-block-309793Looking at a recent block, you can see people/machines have different ideas of a reasonable fee:
http://blockchain.info/block-index/426239/0000000000000004604489e4e1788c16479c60c37f55671ddca4cf2706915a95Generally less than 0.0001 BTC by my eye-balling. Pool operators do whatever gets them the most miners. If they started advertising their mintxfee settings, then miners could make a decision about which pool to join based on that. I'd personally join a pool which encourages a higher fee than the status quo with the long term goal of raising fees.
Payment gateways generate transactions and can add a fee to a transaction, I think you misunderstand at which point the fee is added. as another example, some of the exchanges already charge their own withdrawal fees, but you can guess that they aren't adding a percentage of that to the transaction fee, which perhaps they should :-)
I think your two replies have been a little condescending. Better to discuss rather than attack.