Heh. Sure, we all want lower fees. BitFloor makes substantially less per transaction. It's their choice.
The amount made per transaction is independent of the principle of paying the liquidity provider. Mt.Gox make 0.65% * 2 per transaction. That can be split anywhere they like, and the percentage to provider can be anything they like. For example if the liquidity provider is paid 0.5%, then the liquidity taker has to pay that 0.5% plus the 1.3% trade fee = 1.8%. I'm not saying that would be good; but it's to demonstrate that paying the provider is a separate issue.
I know. But I'm talking about the numbers quoted above, not about the principle. The principle is basically the same between Bitfloor and Intersango now, but Bitfloor takes a much lesser fee and balances it more towards the liquidity provider.
The only thing I'd say is that they aren't the same because of that key threshold: zero. There is a huge difference between a trade earning you a fee and a trade costing you a fee.
I'd not heard of Bitfloor before your comment, but I will investigate them now.
In fact Intersango worked without any fees for some time and often mtGox was the better deal to both buy and sell. However Intersango is very convenient for me having a British bank account and being able to trade in GBP. If I have to deal in dollars that involves some friction and some loses to currency swings. I might hedge that but I don't trade anywhere near enough to justify all this complexity.
Intersango had no fees to attract enough trade volume to turn it into the second largest bitcoin broker out there. Its worked well to attract liquidity however it hasnt exceeded MtGox and I doubt ever will if the fees charged serve to
lower trade volume*edit* raise the cost of orderbook purchasing resulting in lowered trade volume. I'm just waiting to see the impact.
muyuu: You can trade GBP with direct GBP bank funding in MtGox. Currently Intersango's GBP trade volume usually matches and exceeds MtGox's however the actual bitcoin prices are a lot better on MtGox, especially with discounts applied. How do you deal in dollars? I've been looking into it but haven't found a cost effective way of converting and transferring my currency.