Just to clarify your number, an average Bitcoin block (currently) has about 2000 transactions, each of which, be it a transaction for half a cent, or a billion dollars, cost around $3 each. What you described is what happened when Bitcoin was actually being adopted by people, the mempool, that is, transactions not added to the latest block, started to fill up, and the market took hold and people who offered more to transact were included in the block. You don't have to offer more for the transaction and your transaction will sit in the mempool forever. Offering more is simply a way to expedite your transaction.