When people talk about fees, they usually talk about cost.
But the real issue is attention.
You open a transaction. You see a number. You decide it’s acceptable. You move forward. At confirmation, the number changes. Even if the difference is small, something shifts psychologically. It no longer feels like market demand. It feels like instability.
That moment of hesitation is where trust is built or lost.
What Fabric Foundation is trying to do with ROBO’s fee structure is separate predictability from volatility. A clear base fee sets expectations. A dynamic component reflects real-time network demand. In theory, that’s transparent and honest.
But theory only works if experience matches it.
Users are not analyzing congestion curves mid-click. They are making a commitment. If the quote they accepted mentally is not the one they are asked to approve, hesitation follows. And hesitation in a dynamic system can become costly.
The solution isn’t lower fees. It’s better structure: clear explanations, stable quotes for short windows, and obvious trade-offs between cost and speed.
People will accept high fees. They won’t accept feeling controlled.
In decentralized systems, respecting user attention is part of the product.