First, is the short-term crypto market crash as the price falls causing investors to make a lot of transactions on decentralized trading platforms causing GAS to increase in price. and If high gas fees still shock you then you are probably a crypto newbie this always happens when prices go up, if you see the market is all green then you may also encounter high fees , the number of users can also affect gas fees, the higher the user, the higher the transaction. I have been trading in crypto platform for many years so I feel this is very normal.
You mentioned that high gas fees are normal. I'm a normie coming into crypto, so my thoughts on this are different. The second I saw the gas fees I decided not to do any withdrawal/moving of ETH.
I think of crypto/blockchain like a credit card processing network, so this is what I compare it to in my mind. To bring crypto to the masses and make it more mainstream as a currency, the gas fees will need to go down. I would like to see it cost less than credit card processing fees, which range between 2% - 3% per transaction. So for example if you buy a $20 item using a traditional credit card with fiat, the credit card processing (network) fee will be $0.40 - $0.60, and in some cases more because there is also a fixed amount included, so it could be as high as $1.00.
I would like to see a $20 online transaction made with crypto cost $0.10 to process. I am ready for this to happen; I am ready for cheaper online buying/selling, but the blockchain is not there yet.
Will ETH 2.0 (Serenity update - proof of stake model) get us there? How much will the gas fees be? Will it only be 50% lower than current gas prices? If so, this is not enough to make the ETH network mainstream, and more progress will need to take place.