Sorry for a lazy post but I did the calculation a while back and when bitcoin was only a few thousand dollars, if there were no coins bieng mined there would have to be the equivalent of $60 fee per transaction for the miners to make as much as they were making for the coins they mined.  Now with bitcoin at the price it currently is, it would cost hundreds of dollars per transaction.  Do we really believe that bitcoin could survive on just fees alone?  How much are people really willing to pay?

So why not just ban fees altogether?  It has become 'give them an inch and they take a mile' since we allow fees miners are making record amounts on the coins itself and they double dip and take record amounts of fees.  Why?  Because they can.  I think it was a mistake to allow fees in the first place.