Lately ETH fees have been skyrocketing and I have been paying 50 cents for a normal eth transaction and over $1 for contract functions. Used to be a few pennies at most to get your transaction confirmed quickly.
I'm not sure when did you see that ETH fee is skyrocketing, as far as I know, it is still very cheap as compare to bitcoin and any other alt coins and I would say that it is very competitive. It is also a sign that many users are going ETH, meaning it could push the price, so take it and not complain. Same with bitcoin the price will evolved overtime and will change so you also have to anticipated that.
So true! The fee of ETH is raising sometimes but not skyrocketing. Furthermore, ETH fee is indeed effective. The more you pay, the faster the transaction is. I can't think of any coins that have low transaction fees and as effective as ETH. The fact is that ETH fee is raising but not too much, it's a good sign showing that people are interested in ETH than before!!