Are transaction fees expected to rise over time?

[Este Nuno]

I can almost guarantee the tx fees are going to rise. As bitcoin grows it will only be natural for the fees to rise. It also depends on how you look at it.. Technically the fees are changing every day with the value of bitcoin fluctuating, however in terms of will the tx fee ever rise above .0001? The simple answer is yes.

Yeah the value of the fees goes up as the value of the currency rises. The market will take care of the rest. You can all ready get a transaction through faster by sending with a higher fee.

I think there will actually be downward pressure in the price as the transaction volume increases due to economies of scale.

Why do you expect downward pressure on the transaction fee? As the block rewards continue to be cut in half, miners will be expecting to get more and more of their profits through the collection of fees.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Why do you expect downward pressure on the transaction fee? As the block rewards continue to be cut in half, miners will be expecting to get more and more of their profits through the collection of fees.

Fees may rise marginally in USD terms but a rising exchange rate means they will fall in BTC terms.  Fees today (measured as BTC per KB) are 1% of what they were initially and the block reward is half as much (in BTC terms).  Will fees rise on a USD basis?  Maybe but maybe not.  Miners have very little pricing power.   The block reward prior (including avg fees per block) prior to the last halving was ~50.00 BTC and today it is ~25.01 to 25.10.  The rise in fees per block has more to do with the 10x increase in tx volume than miners exerting any pricing pressure.

[Este Nuno]

Why do you expect downward pressure on the transaction fee? As the block rewards continue to be cut in half, miners will be expecting to get more and more of their profits through the collection of fees.

Fees may rise marginally in USD terms but a rising exchange rate means they will fall in BTC terms.  Fees today (measured as BTC per KB) are 1% of what they were initially and the block reward is half as much (in BTC terms).  Will fees rise on a USD basis?  Maybe but maybe not.  Miners have very little pricing power.   The block reward prior (including avg fees per block) prior to the last halving was ~50.00 BTC and today it is ~25.01 to 25.10.  The rise in fees per block has more to do with the 10x increase in tx volume than miners exerting any pricing pressure.

I think miners should collectively act to keep fees as low as possible in USD value to maximise potential adoption while it's still early in the life of bitcoin. Fees will go down in btc, but I don't think it's in anyones interest for fees to ever go up in USD. Not for a long time anyway. If miners processed low fee transactions it would lessen the barrier of entry for some people.

Even if we see another 10x rise in transaction volume by the next reward halving, I still think it's more profitable in the long run for bitcoin to charge the lowest fees possible.

[tvbcof]

I think miners should collectively act to keep fees as low as possible in USD value to maximise potential adoption while it's still early in the life of bitcoin. Fees will go down in btc, but I don't think it's in anyones interest for fees to ever go up in USD. Not for a long time anyway. If miners processed low fee transactions it would lessen the barrier of entry for some people.

IOW, continue the strategy of bait-n-switch, and without even a twinge of recognition.  One can hardly blame those who harbor some suspicions of the ethics of the Bitcoin community.

If one doesn't want fees, just open up the transaction rate.  That will rather quickly achieve the vision of there being about 6 copies of the blockchain held by organizations who can handle the load.  These types will probably pay a person to use Bitcoin or at least offer a zillion valuable perks for doing so.  The value of the information stream coming from the userbase makes it an economically viable business model.  Just like modern e-mail.

In the mean time, if one patronizes outfits which use authentication systems supplied by the large American internet organizations then said organizations can enjoy some of the benefits of mining the info stream without even undergoing the relatively minor hassle and expense of operating clusters of Bitcoin supernodes.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I think miners should collectively act to keep fees as low as possible in USD value to maximise potential adoption while it's still early in the life of bitcoin.

  Miners can't collectively force fees higher any more than they can collectively force fees lower.   Miners have almost no pricing power when it comes to fees.   Once v 0.9 becomes the majority of the network the cost to relay will be 0.01 mBTC per KB (~0.6 cents).  Will miners require a higher fee to include a tx in the next block?  Maybe but the history has shown they have just gone with the flow.  Right now I don't know a single miner which requires more than 0.1 mBTC per KB (the min to relay imposed by v0.8x) to include a tx in a block.   

[Harley997]

In terms of BTC, TX fees per transaction/KB will decrease over time. In terms of TX fees per block they are expected to rise as more people accept BTC and thus send TXs.