Kind of sounds stupid if Bitcoin gets really busy that you have to "pay fees" to make sure your transactions go by faster. This is a silly gimmick to the whole idea of Bitcoin doesn't make sense.
Miners provide computing power to the network at the cost of electricity and hardware. If there was no return there would be no one mining. You would have to mine yourself to maintain the system, in which case you have to pay for the hardware and electricity yourself. In the late future, you'll even be able to witness miners turning down blocks that don't have adequate transaction fees attached.