> But transfering bitcoin is not instant and not free is it? Please correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I understood you will have to wait for your transaction to be included in a (few steps of the?) chain, and unless you pay a fee you might not get included for a while?
Well, it's free to the transferers, because new coins are issued for work performed, and likewise, the new bitcoin compensates and incentivizes the efforts of the blockchain verification, so that balance should be even as well. Sounds zero-sum to me.
> And is there not possible that in the future, if the amount of transaction increase as bitcoin becomes more popular, and the money you get from mining goes to zero, that transactions with fees will be the only ones accepted (at a reasonable rate)?
Well, it's free to the transferers, because new coins are issued for work performed, and likewise, the new bitcoin compensates and incentivizes the efforts of the blockchain verification, so that balance should be even as well. Sounds zero-sum to me.
> And is there not possible that in the future, if the amount of transaction increase as bitcoin becomes more popular, and the money you get from mining goes to zero, that transactions with fees will be the only ones accepted (at a reasonable rate)?
Yes, this is an ongoing potential problem with bitcoin: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/876/how-much-will...