Data from Blockchain points to a steady increase in the number of daily transactions, although that change is not followed by a corresponding rise in transaction fees. This, in turn, points to a greater number of non-commercial transactions taking place.
what the hell are non-commercial transactions and why would they carry a higher fee?
Commerical blockchain transactions are bitcoins changing owner in return for goods or services. We can include bitcoins converted to cash through Bitpay/Coinbase.
Non-commercial transactions are bitcoins moving between addresses of the same owner (tumbling, hotwallet-coldwallet flow, consolidation and splitting, etc.), bitcoins exchanged by other currencies (via localbitcoins or OTC trades), or transfers between private wallets and bitcoin "banks" (entities where deposited bitcoins are stored in personal accounts, e.g. exchanges and gambling sites).
Coindesk apparently assumes that non-commercial trasactions generally offer SMALLER fees than commercial ones. So, the rise in number of transactions without an increase in total fees suggests that only the non-commercial transactions are increasing.
It is hard to tell, though, since commercial transacions must be a small fraction of the total trasactions entering the blockchain. Any increase in the commercial traffic would be hard to separate from the non-commercial one.