Well, the idea of free transactions was more about the possibility than a rule. It's like, if the network isn't too busy, miners can pick up zero-fee transactions as a goodwill gesture. But requiring it? Nah, that goes against the grain of Bitcoin being open and market-driven.

Miners gotta cover costs too, so they usually pick transactions with fees first. That's just business sense. What we need is to keep improving efficiency and maybe layer 2 solutions like Lightning Network to make cheap txs possible for everyone.

It's all 'bout balance – keeping miners incentivized while making sure users ain't paying through the nose. No hard numbers here; just gotta let the market do its thing! #BitcoinBalance