It's not about "deciding" to add a block.  If you're mining, you are in a race with many other people to "add a block".  This answer has more detail:


So the fees are in there when you find a block.  As the mining computer (or pool), you get to keep the difference between inputs and outputs in the transactions which are in the block.  You can make decisions about which transactions to try to include in the block as you go looking for a block and receiving transaction broadcasts on the network.

About starting your own pool, you're going to be in tough competition.  Since you're just learning the very basics here right now, it's doubtful that you're ready to compete with the big players out there.  But nice enthusiasm tho!

Sort of... let me try to explain it a bit more clearly.

People are constantly creating transactions to move coins around.  These transactions contain inputs and outputs.  The inputs are what you as the sender are combining together to come up with the desired amount of coin you wish to send.  The outputs are the receiver(s) of those coins and change addresses.  The difference between the inputs and the outputs are the fees.

Using my example above, I had two inputs, each of 1BTC and only one output for 1.05BTC.  Because there was 0.95BTC leftover, that becomes what we refer to as the fee.

Now, pools - and individual miners if they're going at it solo - are taking some number of those transactions, and attempting to find a hash that satisfies the network difficulty, so that those transactions can be added to the public ledger known as the blockchain.  When a miner is successful in doing so, a new block is created and added to the chain.  The reward for creating that new block is the generation of 25 brand new coins.  Additionally, because there is a difference between the inputs and outputs (in our example, 0.95BTC), that is also awarded as part of that transaction which creates the 25BTC.  So, assuming our transaction was the only one included in a block, the end result you would see by looking at the blockchain is a block with TWO transactions.  The first transaction is the 25.95BTC of generated coins, the second is our transaction sending 1.05BTC.

There really is no "approval" here, but rather "confirmation".  Your transaction, once it gets included into a block becomes confirmed.  Those 25.95BTC are referred to as generated coins and you must wait 101 confirmations before they become spendable coin.

Make sense?

Since you didn't even understand how tx fees are handled I'll go out on a limb and say you do not know enough to run your own pool.  No one is going to hold your hand with that one.

Zetaray makes a very good point, and I've bolded it to add some emphasis.  We constantly talk about including fees with our transactions, and that higher fees tend to lead to transactions being included in blocks sooner.  The reality is that the fees are nothing more than the difference between the inputs and the outputs.  For example, if I use two inputs of 1BTC each and my output is only 1.05BTC then I have generously given 0.95BTC as a fee to whoever includes my transaction in a block.  Unless you're creating your own raw transactions, that stuff is hidden from you.  You just say, "Send XX BTC to some address and pay YY BTC as a fee for doing it."

yes, in ... the year 2140 : https://en.bitcoin.it/w/index.php?title=Controlled_supply&redirect=no

Hmm ... think of it this way:

OMG I can start a small airline and make millions in profit each year.

... and yet almost no one seems to do that ... I wonder why

Consider this as well: once all the 21 million bitcoins are distributed, there won't be any coinbase in the new blocks and at that point, the miners will indeed be mining only for the fees.

Today the pool will be out of service to launch a major upgrade, remain inaccessible until further notice, no specific date.

Sorry for the inconvenience.