Re: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion
First of all, there is no perfect competition. Some businesses will always gain an edge. As happens over and over again, an oligarchy is eventually formed. If left unchecked, a cartel is then formed. Then the cartel can charge whatever price the market will bear. For some products and services, this price is quite high indeed. As can be seen from the current tx market with Bitcoin, the cost people are willing to expend on a transaction is quite high. Pennies is not going to be that price. It will be magnitudes of orders higher.
This is actually a good point. TX fees are extremely high right now because BS/Core has formed a cartel in order to limit the production of block space. What is confusing (and ironic) is that the miners (those who one would naively suspect to attempt to form a cartel) want the production quota lifted! So, yes, experience is showing that Bitcoin is somewhat susceptible to cartel formation (it's just surprising that it's cartels of developers rather than cartels of miners).
Oh yes, this recent growth in the mempool is totally organic.
Or do you think Bitcoin Core may be deliberately spamming the network even though AFAIK, it would have no benefit to them? Seems like a pretty pricey demonstration for them to demonstrate why LN is needed. 
Of course, Saint Jihan Wu and friends would never consider stuffing the mempool with lower fee transactions so they can collect the higher transactions piling on top of that. We all know Saint Jihan Wu is much too altruistic to even consider doing something like that.