Exceptions aside, fees are indeed not above values seen
in the past, but
cost is probably best seen in comparison to the amount one wants to send. Clearly sending very small amounts of bitcoin, whilst within normal ranges for many to send, do encounter nowadays high fees compared to the base amount being sent. Fees on TXs that send higher amounts are relatively smaller compared to the base amount being sent, and thus are conceptually easier to digest.
This is balanced and a cogent summary of this discussion. While the whales do not blink an eye over the increase in Tx fees, little fries like majority of us are sweating already over the it. I took some time to monitor some wallets I was able to connect to some popular mixers to check the flow of transactions amidst this increase in fees, I notice that while transaction of lower amounts reduced, bigger amounts are being transacted unhindered.
So the crux of the matter is that majority of us are feeling the impact of the high fees because of the amount of Bitcoin we move, this being in line with what OP is saying. But then, nobody love spending too much, so the whales will still feel happy if the fees normalises.