There is a philosophical split that cleaves the blockchain world in very unequal parts.
On the 99% side, it's a fiercely individualistic view of the world where you find all the blockchains that charge tx fees- pay per use, like toll roads.
On the 1% side you have Steem, Hive, Nano, IOTA where the infrastructure costs are mutualized and paid for from a community budget, and there are no tx fees for use, like most roads.
Imagine what moving around would be like if 99% of roads were toll roads.
Laissez faire individualism is not complementing to public goods!
Both are needed, "everything in moderation" is the key.
In a truly decentrailzed world, the blockchain infrastructure should be a "non-excludable", "non rivalrous" public good.
Transaction fees act as an exclusion device - if you can't pay them, you are excluded from the infrastructure. Imagine someone gifts you a valuable NFT on an address you control: without ETH (or whatever the coin of the respective blockchain is) you cannot move it, you cannot transfer that asset. Or it is the power to transfer that asset that is the principal marker of "owenrship" for digital assets.
The tendency of people to flock around one blockchain combined with limited scalability (which is a defining characteristic of the blockchain design) also make the "pyramidal" spirit of the Ethereum eco-system "rivalrous" - more use from some make it less usable for the rest.
Could not agree anymore.