While fees disincentivize use, they incentivize more proof-of-work being done (processing as well as hardening the network).
Not at current levels, right now the block reward is the majority of the incentive for mining. Average miners don't see any of those fees after pool and network fees are deducted
Oh, you are right. I tend to think way into the future.
Yeah it's very valid if you're saying that tx fees will be critical in the distant future, but dropping the block reward is still a long way off
Source: mining for 3 years. Excess network activity doesn't mean anything if there isn't actual adoption bringing price up with it, nobody mines BTC just for those
