At one point, 70,000 transactions were stuck, unleashing a mountain of complaints from worried bitcoin users who took to bitcoin’s main communication channels of r/btc and r/bitcoin to ask why their transaction does not confirm. Among the complainants was a parent who wondered why their son’s payment to Microsoft is not going through. Another asked why his transaction has not confirmed in 24 hours while others wanted to know how to “delete” unconfirmed transactions.
People have to calm down when things like these are happening. In cases of the mempool being spammed like there is no tomorrow, people need to realize that they have to include a higher fee than normal in order to get their transaction confirmed within a reasonable amount of time.
I understand that the rookie Bitcoiner can't always see and understand what's happening when unconfirmed transactions are piling up, but in this case wallet clients have to issue a warning/notification just before sending out a transaction, that due to the network circumstances, it is adviced to include a higher than average fee. It's not that difficult.
funny, my transactions were all confirmed within few minutes the entire time.
My transactions mostly get included in the next block as well, but that's mainly due to the fact that I include a much higher fee. If I set the fees at 0.0001BTC as many people see as normal nowadays, then it might take a block or 3 or 4 before it gets confirmed.
