Not trolling (no pun intended) but why should I join a pool with a 4% fee over one with 0% or even 2%? I'm just trying to figure out what makes it popular. Help appreciated.
You've to take into account many factors: of course the type of reward (proportional, PPS...); the fee itself; whether the pool pays for stale shares (and, if it doesn't, how many stale shares you get with that pool); whether the pool pays for orphaned blocks too; whether there are LTC withdrawal fees; pool downtime;... the
risk of losing shares (the pool says "accepted" and then it doesn't pay for'em)...