Yeah, and running a node needs to be easy if we want the network to remain decentralized. The blockchain is growing in a more-or-less linear fashion, so the more-than-linear (exponential at least for now, as per Moore's law, but we don't know for how long) growth of storage technology should allow for nodes to become increasingly more decentralized. Not sure about Monero, but had the blocksize wars been won by the large blockers camp (led by Gavin Andresen), the blockchain would grow exponentially and we might get stuck in a centralization spiral.

The fees will go up, but the base chain wasn't meant to scale, that's what LN and other L2 and L3 solutions are for. In the trilemma, decentralization and security cannot be compromised on, so it's scalability that is sacrificed.