Yes, part of the plan is for miners to transition from mining-based activity to focusing on transaction fees. This would probably mean transaction fees will tre

Yes, part of the plan is for miners to transition from mining-based activity to focusing on transaction fees. This would probably mean transaction fees will trend upward. I think it remains to be seen if this will be a profitable enterprise. Certainly, bitcoin trade volume will be a very important part of this equation, if it does not really take off as an actual currency, but remain as instrument to store wealth, that could spell disaster for bit coin. If miners do turn away from bitcoin, the capacity will be drastically reduce which makes a 51% attack much more feasible, threatening bitcoin's existence. This is much more worrisome than transaction speed slow-down and in fact, as long as there is heavy volume, miners could make money off transaction fees so they are almost mutually exclusive events. Despite all this, I think bitcoin is pioneering the field, and regardless of it lives or dies, it will have impacts in various facets of the future.