To the point of the question, on whether or not it is bad for bitcoin: all of these considerations arise as a result of the halving, but that halving is very much necessary for bitcoin to halve any value. Its value only derives from its scarcity and the guarantee of that halving. Without it, it is nothing more than binary digits and wasted electricity. Putting pressure on miners, though, is perhaps a bad thing. The next best thing would be a disinflationary supply, with constant mining output (I think Ether has this principle?), or even a constant-inflationary supply (i.e. block reward expands to ensure constant expansion of maybe ∼3/4% p.a, Friedman-style?). It's all guesswork, but I think there is cause to be bullish, and I really don't think the network is going to break in 20 days' time.
Along with the halving miners could raise the fees in order to somewhat compensate (or overcompensate, lol) for the loss of profits due to halving and possible price collapse just before or right after the halving...
I'm curious who does actually set the fees?
Sorry for the delay; my response has obviously been under incubation for a while to allow full cogency
Market price can only be manipulated by those who hold substantial sums of coins; yes, miners do, but they will less so after halving. And they'll have to dispose of them eventually. Let's wait and see.
Fees are determined by us, who send transactions. It's a "fee market", and in fact, that is why the block size has to be limited (though 7tps is extremely mediocre, and off-chain solutions destroy the very essence of BTC, but this is a discussion for another thread). We set what fee we would like to pay to the miner and they include the highest fee paying Txs in their blocks. But, if the situation becomes that you have to include high fees to transact, people just will not transact and continue to hold their coins. Miners revenue declines; they power off. Businesses go bankrupt, sometimes. Yes, they do everything in their power to prevent it and even manipulate and break the rules, but sooner or later they evaporate.
For example, Lehman Brothers...
