the value of a transaction is meaningless when it comes to fees, the only thing that counts is the size in bytes. a 10 input transaction for 0.001 btc is gonna cost more than a 1 input transaction of 10,000 btc.
fees have risen of course and so has the price. if bitcoin was $250 still it wouldn't be such an issue.
segwit will ease the pressure but it might not be the miracle people are looking for. a segwit block fits more transactions in but high fees might be here to stay.
Thanks for your reply. In the long term, if you had to hold one, would you choose BTC or ETH?
There are some cryptocurrencies (Byteball, Litecoin, Monero) that I'd be reasonably comfortable holding long term and that would have much lower fees. However, ETH is a very confusing one. The idea isn't really a cryptocurrency but a platform to use smart contracts for other people to create blockchain applications.
I would still hold Bitcoin for long term and just hold a little bit in ETH. ETH transaction fees are getting higher too, who knows what will happen when more money and more evil businesses get involved.
PS, $60 out of $5000 is much more like 1%, not 10%, and you can easily get away with paying a third or so less than the recommended fee - check
this page to see what you can get away with.