Why Do Gas Fees Decide Who Gets to Cut the Line?

[Thenticity]

So I’ve been thinking about how Gas fees work and I’m curious. Why is there a priority system? Why would a transaction behind mine skip the line and get attended to first before mine because they paid a higher fee? Is there a particular reason?
I know other DTL like Hedera maintain fees regardless of network congestion. Why can’t blockchains do the same?

Isn’t this the same thing centralized systems do that we’ve gotten sick of and turned to blockchain for fair treatment?

I’m not being judgy just genuinely curious. Anybody cares to explain?

[bitterguy28]

everything is business

validators and miners are the ones putting in effort to make sure our transactions come through and that the network is safe and secure so these gas fees or transaction fees are their incentives the higher you pay of course the first one you will be prioritized actually it is not a requirement but if you want to move things along you would really want to go and pay more so that the validators give you extra attention in exchange for extra rewards

[hugeblack]

So I’ve been thinking about how Gas fees work and I’m curious. Why is there a priority system? Why would a transaction behind mine skip the line and get attended to first before mine because they paid a higher fee? Is there a particular reason?

There is a priority system because the space in the block is limited and there is congestion, if there is no congestion the fees will be close to zero. If block space increased significantly the currency will be closer to being distributed than being completely decentralized like BNB network.

[Zed0X]

~
Isn’t this the same thing centralized systems do that we’ve gotten sick of and turned to blockchain for fair treatment?

Not exactly about centralization but I can see what you're trying to say. Combining the two reasons previously mentioned, there are network limitations and the miners/validators are also taking advantage of that. After all, they invested a lot in helping the network harder to exploit.

[Stompix]

So I’ve been thinking about how Gas fees work and I’m curious. Why is there a priority system? Why would a transaction behind mine skip the line and get attended to first before mine because they paid a higher fee? Is there a particular reason?

Because someone could create 1 million transactions at the minimum scripting fee and you will have no way to do anything but wait in queue after this guy, the second major problem with a queue system is that there is actually no consensus on timing, nodes receive transactions individually and there is no actual timestamp on transactions until they are included ina block, so there is no queue anywhere based on time alone.

Isn’t this the same thing centralized systems do that we’ve gotten sick of and turned to blockchain for fair treatment?

No, it's the free-market with no central point that everyone wants, suddenly you don't like the laws of supply and demand?

[Thenticity]

Because someone could create 1 million transactions at the minimum scripting fee and you will have no way to do anything but wait in queue after this guy

So basically to combat dos?

No, it's the free-market with no central point that everyone wants, suddenly you don't like the laws of supply and demand?

I understand demand/supply is present whoever there’s any kind of market. But I was thinking, it would be a little different from how  centralization does it. Besides I know this transactions happen in literal seconds or minutes and I might not really notice the delay but the thought of someone hopping positions is just…

[Stompix]

Because someone could create 1 million transactions at the minimum scripting fee and you will have no way to do anything but wait in queue after this guy

So basically to combat dos?

Yup, one reason why early bitcoin development introduced minimum fees

I understand demand/supply is present whoever there’s any kind of market. But I was thinking, it would be a little different from how  centralization does it. Besides I know this transactions happen in literal seconds or minutes and I might not really notice the delay but the thought of someone hopping positions is just…

Without centralization there is no actual queue, you can send your tx and normally it would be broadcasted immediately to all nodes around you and then entered in most miners' mem pools, but, transactions don't have universally accepted dates attached to them like bank transfers, what might be a 1-month-old tx for a node might be a 1 second old for other, you will never be able to queue transactions unless you have a central ledger, aka centralization.

[Thenticity]

Without centralization there is no actual queue, you can send your tx and normally it would be broadcasted immediately to all nodes around you and then entered in most miners' mem pools, but, transactions don't have universally accepted dates attached to them like bank transfers, what might be a 1-month-old tx for a node might be a 1 second old for other, you will never be able to queue transactions unless you have a central ledger, aka centralization.

You’re about to trigger a whole rant on consensus mechanisms.