Most of the time Ethereum is less than a penny for a simple value transfer, and it does more than twice as many transactions per day as Bitcoin. It's also pretty easy to implement simple payment channels:
I was just pulling up avg tx fees. I realize that tx cost on ETH varies highly, do you have a preferred site to tell what contracts are economically viable for what amounts?
For instance I would be happy to buy a cryptokitty or two at the ~1 USD price range, but if the tx fees are ~1 USD then it's obviously a no go.
It tells the lowest gas price you can use to be reasonably sure your transaction will go through, and how long it's likely to take. Using that gas price it also gives a dollar cost of a simple transfer, which at the moment is higher than I expected at 20 cents for a 20-minute wait, or 33 cents for a 3-minute wait.
For cryptokitties you'll have a higher gas cost; I don't really know how high but I think I've seen people complain about spending six bucks for cryptokitty transaction at a 60 gwei gas price.
http://www.blunderingcode.com/a-lightning-network-in-two-pag...