Are you talking about Venezuela, or some other country? Do you have any proof for this? If this information is accurate, then they should have bargained with the government and tried to get the fees reduced. Most of the government officials have zero knowledge about Bitcoin and with some awareness they could have taken a less hostile stance. But still, it is encouraging that the government initially allowed the ATM to be set up (in my country, when the last time someone tried to do that, he ended up in jail).

Although this 15% fee sounds really high, I don't think that it affects them in a big way. The ATM users will be paying this (on top of your commissions), so they are not going to incur any losses. I agree that 15% is very high. But if there are no other options, then people would be willing to give it a go. During 2014/15, when there were not many Bitcoin sellers in India, it was common to see ads in Localbitcoins of merchants asking commissions up to 10% or 15%. So this is not very uncommon.