Two things: 1) Escalating fees were always predicted as inevitable with a busier network, and in fact desired as a means of supporting miners. We aren’t going back, but that’s ok; 2) I think of inscriptions as analogous to unique coins in traditional money — coins that were minted with an aesthetic error, or are exceptionally old, or another unique feature. They are still fungible, and most people trade them without knowing or caring, but a smaller community collects them and pays sometimes large sums to own them, removing them from circulation. Occasionally even these people spend them by accident, and they are back on the market.