High gas fees are destroying our defi protocol's user acquisition

Running a defi protocol and sat down to calculate what we're actually spending per user in gas fees. The results are... not good.

New user onboarding: $4.20 first swap: $3.80

Providing liquidity: $7.50 claiming rewards: $2.10

So they've paid $17.60 in gas before doing anything meaningful. Our average user ltv is $35. We're taking almost half just in transaction costs. Talked to 3 other defi founders and they're seeing the same thing. One said 80% of their users try the protocol once, pay $15 in gas, and never come back. We can't control mainnet gas prices. We can optimize contracts but when congestion spikes we're all just paying whatever the market demands and users don't care that "it's not our fault" they just see expensive transactions and leave.

Some protocols subsidize gas but unless you have massive vc funding that's not sustainable. Others move to L2s but lose composability with mainnet defi. Don't really have a solution, just wanted to vent because it's frustrating building something users want but the infrastructure makes it unviable.