They would pay more if Bitcoin got more usage, but at least it was the usage it's indended for and the usage that is actually needed in this world i.e. censorship-free money transfers.
The ordinals experiment has clearly shown that you can't stop non-transfer uses within the existing consensus rules. As long as there's script, and as long as there are addresses, then there are straightforward ways to encode arbitrary data within them. Only a script-free blockchain without adresses, such as Mimblewimble, can strongly limit the amount of arbitrary data, to about 2% of chainsize (using lock heights in the past).