To make it as short as possible, for the network to have the same security as now without a block reward we would need each block to have twice as big fees in the future, that's how things work!
So, are you angry with high fees? Yes, we all are, but, wasn't this the design?
Before anyone comes up with some myths about this, let's clear some things
1) More efficient gear isn't making the network more secure alone, what's making the network secure is the amount of $ to invest to generate that hashrate, so if you think more efficient gear will mean the network will be just as secure but cheaper, it's delusional.
Right now the network is guarded by 400Exahash, which alone doesn't mean a thing, you must translate those into 4 million $2000 a piece machines to understand the security right now, as it takes 8 billion to launch a 51% attack. This also doesn't mean that because the hashrate in 2013 was one million lower you could attack it at that time with just 8000$
2) Cheaper energy or solar or renewable or anything else, again won't solve a thing, even if we run our gear on 0.1 cents per kWh if the reward per day is just $1000 you will only be able to afford 1Gkwh, so anyone willing to spend more than $1000 on energy will have the upper hand!
So, as a conclusion or encouragement or whatever, don't be angry at the fees, they help secure the network, and this is how it was designed to be in the first place, otherwise, we would end up like Bitcoin Gold or
Ethereum classic, shitcoins getting 51% attacked 3 times in a row.
And of course, for now, we could actually start using LN rather than complaining, but that would be a solution that involves doing something!
Wrong. It was expected for the success of Bitcoin, higher fees due to everyone transacting more bitcoins, not spam meme trash or outright parasite nfts, etc. Even before the spam attack, people were complaining that Bitcoin couldn't transact as many transactions as other systems. Well for sure with the spam it would transact less now, good for you?.
The spam sustains mining? No, it is the bitcoin market price. Mining will shrink no matter what, that is why there is a halving, there will be less and less bitcoins minted. The only reason this gets delayed, is because the market price of bitcoin rises. And this too, is slowing down, it will increase less and less, a repeat of the historical price of gold, as intended.
The security is not affected because the miners that are leaving, they do so because its so much more expensive to mine, and so is the 51% attack. This is something you don't see because you are looking at it linearly, and its not. THE reason mining diminishes, is because its too expensive to achieve, and that also makes the attack more expensive, with enough people leaving the diff goes back down attracting back some mining balancing itself. No, everyone won't simply disappear, there will be enough miners just less of them but still enough to make the attack cost more than the possible return. The last miners will be home miners who don't care to operate at a loss or from renewable energy, the opposite of what you claim. Investing now in renewable energy with the profits you made from mining, will ensure you will be there mining when all the others are gone, and gone they will be, maybe next halving or the one after it, it depends a lot in the market price of bitcoin.
The spam only halts normal transactions. The excuse that this makes mining profitable is a lie. Right now you can see it, it barely adds an extra bitcoin to the blocks. And yet, it makes the user experience awful for everybody else. Some pools are pushing the spam for cheap, so the spam is getting in while legit transactions are getting kicked out of the mempool.
The fact that you mention lightning network, means you have not tried to open a LN node when this mess is going on, you should try it and suffer. Oh, but what about using someone else's node? Sure,
trust some stranger won't steal your coins or sell your info, just he opposite of what Bitcoin is all about...
Who benefits from this? Why, of course, those that claim that Bitcoin sucks, And THEIR "solution" is "better"... They are laughing while they see Bitcoin getting worse, and hey, they even get a few extra months of mining out of it, win/win!
Everyone here knows who are the losers from this charade. What do companies who mine to sell for fiat care, or those playing trading with futures pool capital, etc. The humble miner that kept all the coins will have the last word in the future when its not profitable to mine anymore. Look at Dogecoin, why are there people still mining an infinite supply coin? Do you think nobody will mine Bitcoin just because it becomes unprofitable to do so? And yes, it WILL become unprofitable, there is nothing you can do about it, the spam will not be enough to sustain it, all you gain from it may be days but the result is the same. Therefore your justification is invalid.
Spam cannot be justified, it doesn't bring anything, its actually taking away from a project with a goal which is to give the world a currency not made by the State. Make it worse, make it centralized and prone to abuse, while making some cash while laughing at the misery of others. No it won't destroy Bitcoin, eventually the spam will probably leave for elsewhere, but the path to abuse remains open and demonstrated plenty, so repeated occurrences can only harm Bitcoin reputation as a project whole and perhaps harm adoption for what it was intended (not a cloud data base, that's for sure, many better projects for that).
