I'll admit I'm not expert in mining. I know very little about it, in fact. What I'm wondering is what would happen if bitcoin's price reached a level that was so insane that 1 satoshi was something like $5 or even higher. Would that not screw up the entire bitcoin system? There would be no way to send small amounts of bitcoin or very exact amounts, much less pay a fee to the miners. Am I missing something in that hypothetical case other than the fact that 1 satoshi will probably never be worth that much?
I don't think that 1 satoshi will ever be worth so much, either
However, it doesn't mean that extremely high prices should necessarily screw up the Bitcoin ecosystem as this ecosystem mostly consists of speculators and their likes (read, fees are irrelevant in this context). In other words, such prices and fees as high will only affect real-life use of Bitcoin. But given that it is virtually nonexistent anyway, it is not a big deal in itself. Fees had already been on the insane before but did it stop speculators from speculating?