This is a PR stunt. Average transaction fees on the bitcoin network are approaching $5. That prices a huge swath of the population out of the network. A direct result of the small block policy so forcefully advocated by blockstream affiliates.
The "small block policy" view[1] is held by nearly every technical participant of the bitcoin space[2][3], myself included. Claiming that blockstream are somehow "forcing" anything is pure conspiracy nonsense.
[0] https://bravenewcoin.com/news/bitcoin-spam-attack-stressed-n...
[1] that is, the "let's start by doubling the blocksize with segwit first, analyze the results and then talk about further increasing it" view. not sure how valid the "small block" label is, considering that the people you're labeling with it want to double the block size.
Both of those figures are pulled high by exceptionally valuable and exceptionally large transactions, respectively, of course. Medians might be a better statistic, for which the figures are around $700 (median transaction value) and $1.50 (median transaction fee).
Today, they have much cheaper options, though every transaction looks to take several days.[0]
Amusingly, their Price Estimator [1] continuously reloads with adblockers enabled.
[0] http://onlinefx.westernunion.com/Fees
[1] https://www.westernunion.com/us/en/price-estimator/continue....
Some wallets do still have broken or easily games fee estimations (Blockchain's is notorious. Armory broke down completely.) That is a problem that should have been fixed already but can only be adressed by their respective developers.
However, even at $.5 many use cases are priced out of the network. On chain gambling most notably. This problem is inherent to the extreme replication factor trustless global systems require and is definitively not something that is advocated one way or another.
To btc-e couple of hours before it went offline. :(
Another transaction with 0.00055 BTC fees did get picked up, after spending a couple hours in the mempool.