As much as I like BTC...

[jayc89]

Nah, Bitcoin will go up in value if the people within the world want it to. I am sure that the price of Bitcoin could also go up if a rich person spends a bunch of money on Bitcoin decides on holding the coin for a really long time instead of just dumping it into Bitcoin exchanges.

[Zicadis]

...if there will not be a fix for the long confirmation times (don't tell me raise the fee) I doubt it will ever be used on a big scale.

Even if it reaches 5k... this is not how it should work. It can fall down big this way.

A lasting solution needs to be found and the only way out because if we all raise our fees it comes back where we had left from, the scalability problem

Look at Dogecoin how fast it is in comparison... that's the way to do it.

To be honest Dogecoin has not been put to extreme capacity as bitcoin so comparison not satisfactory.

Let's hope for a fix... in the near future. To be trustful and really become popular it needs to be fast. It's a must.

its popularity doe depend on this and am sure fixing confirmation times is top priority atm

[GetClams.com]

Bitcoin already reached to its full capacity, if Bitcoin wants more adopters, the medium fee price must reduce as before or the big scale adoption won't happen, I agree with OP. As I see Bitcoin is to be used to buy anything, and how it's now it can be used only as speculative currency which you hold for a long time to sell once and enjoy the profit from it. Bitcoin is money and money is used to buy things, a candy or a plane.

Bitcoin has not begin to explore its full capacity. How many planes have you bought?

[olushakes]

...if there will not be a fix for the long confirmation times (don't tell me raise the fee) I doubt it will ever be used on a big scale.

Even if it reaches 5k... this is not how it should work. It can fall down big this way.

Look at Dogecoin how fast it is in comparison... that's the way to do it.

Let's hope for a fix... in the near future. To be trustful and really become popular it needs to be fast. It's a must.

It seems everybody is in the same boat on this one. Gone are the days where the solution to faster confirmations is higher fees but that's just not what is being obtained here as things is really getting out of hand and even with news coming from institutions in support of bitcoin, the population is being massive but comparing btc to doge will not be fair because of the volume differs and more we might not even know how strong doge will be if the same  population bitcoin has garnered decided to switch to doge.

[Vikingr]

...if there will not be a fix for the long confirmation times (don't tell me raise the fee) I doubt it will ever be used on a big scale.

Even if it reaches 5k... this is not how it should work. It can fall down big this way.

Look at Dogecoin how fast it is in comparison... that's the way to do it.

Let's hope for a fix... in the near future. To be trustful and really become popular it needs to be fast. It's a must.

I hope that the developers will fix it. I think they are already involved to solve the issue and very soon we will hear any good news from them.
and one more thing. You said that dogecoin is faster then just look at its users. Very less people are using it that is why the confirmation of it occurs faster when the users of that currency also increase then the time of its confirmation will also increase up.