Although I prefer the mempool priced around 4-6 sats/vB, I'm also happy being patient if not urgent, like most network users it seems.
I also prefer that but most likely happy to see if it will be back to 1 sat/byte. I was able to do a transaction back then and I was 1 sat/vb short with the fee that I've paid and it took a very long time before it was able to get confirmed by a miner. That sucks and I don't want that to happen again to me. Currently, the fees have gone up to 16 sat/vb - 23 sat/vb and this is quite high already and likely that it won't be back a bit anymore. If your transactions are urgent and needed to be done and needs confirmation as soon as possible, pay the priority fee if you don't want headache.
This is one of the imperfections of the Bitcoin network, we should continue to bear. I believe if there is a thing that could be done, it would have been done since, and as LoyceV mentioned in an earlier reply on the OP, there's is nothing to be done, and there's nothing as scary and helpless as that.
Well, this is still manageable as the highest I'd seen since this drama started again was 16sats/vb. If it's still within this limit or a bit higher, we can still continue to manage it.
Yes, nothing to worry about especially those that don't rush their transactions and still not that much for those that are rushing with their transactions. I just can't remember how high it was during the hype of Bitcoin Ordinals, maybe more than 100 sats/vb was it, right or not?
But this is another proof of the selfishness of the miners, they will always be in for the money not the welfare of the system. It's business as usual for a human being if there are no rules or programmed restrictions to counter their selfish desire.
I don't know if they're selfish on that, it is the network that depicts the amount of the fee and they're there actually for the fee as they won't operate without any incentive or reward as it costs them the hardware and the cost of operation.
If it could be like this when the price of Bitcoin is still low, I wonder what the fees would be when activity increases next year and Bitcoin price is also higher.
During the 2021, IIRC, the fees weren't that much but hopefully it won't be as crazy as 2017.