There are 200000 unconfirmed transactions in Bitcoin atm and it keeps growing. (Source - https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions) You need to pay at least $1 fee if you want to get your transaction through quickly, and that is for the smallest possible transaction (1-2 inputs and 1-2 outputs MAX). If you are a merchant like me and have hundreds of addresses and you need to consolidate them every now and then, you are screwed.
viaBTC's tx accelerator (Source - https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator/) is also stuck. The submissions are getting filled up within the first minute after getting reset. They do allow only 100 free submissions per hour (iirc).
The last few times this happened we thought it was bad, but it only gets worse. The fees are getting pushed up higher and higher.
I realize Bitcoin has the first-mover advantage, but will it be enough to survive among the several other altcoins that do not cripple their own network?