Long confirmation time for tx with fees

[potato5491]

http://blockchain.info/tx-index/60642930/a4b84d06e2d391c112ea1dbb9287daa7b72bea5e72cb5b3b79ea55a85cd12e81

Date: 15/03/2013 17:06
Debit: -0.35 BTC
Transaction fee: -0.0003 BTC
Net amount: -0.3503 BTC
Transaction ID: a4b84d06e2d391c112ea1dbb9287daa7b72bea5e72cb5b3b79ea55a85cd12e81

Size is 227 bytes. One input, two outputs.

Took over an hour for this to confirm. Is it because I am a miser and offered fee of 0.0003 rather than 0.0005?

[potato5491]

Just seen block 226033 was 50 minutes after 226032.

226034 (Main Chain)   2013-03-15 18:07:53   00000000000001fadc1192bc00e685b1c9cd02550ead3afdb48a7521580c3a26
226033 (Main Chain)   2013-03-15 17:55:44   0000000000000053dbd9a81292ce7fcd1139046e66b9cd16787b2fa790422440
226032 (Main Chain)   2013-03-15 17:05:25   0000000000000079d2f8246aec7e63edfa313810875863b7fb65b628df760571

Presumably that is why my tx was slower than I expected?

50 minutes is a bit long, is this because the difficulty/hashrate is quite volatile?

[DeathAndTaxes]

Pools/miners are free to include the tx they wish to include.  IIRC some pools consider a fee below min threshold to be no different than a free tx.  Probably not worth savings that half penny worth of fee.  I would go with 0.0005 or nothing.

As for the time between blocks even when hashrate is constant the time between blocks will vary.  The average is 10 minutes but an hour long interval between blocks isn't that uncommon.  Even a two hour interval between blocks is common enough to be seen about once a year or so. Now longer than a two hour interval is pretty rate.  Unless difficulty is off significantly it shouldn't happen very often.

[potato5491]

Thanks DeathAndTaxes.

I will go away and do some sums so I understand the probability distribution for time taken to find a block. After I have drunk a bottle of wine. That will make it so much easier 

[Raoul Duke]

It's because the spammers pay more than you.
Bitcoin is like hotmail and yahoo: the difference between a spammer and a non-spammer is the amount of money they pay.