Fees on other chains like Binance Smart Chain(EVM compatible), Terra and others are quite low now(around 0.2 - 1 USD per transaction). PancakeSwap is a Uniswap alternative on BSC and TerraSwap is a Uni alternative on the Terra blockchain.
The issue is that all of the platforms people want to interact with right now tend to be on Ethereum (which is part of the reason it is so expensive).
100% agree, right now it's like 80$ for a uniswap exchange, 200$ to open a maker vault, 100$ to transfer tokens, etc. I'm really looking forward to eth2 which will hopefully land without too much issues or delays.
It's not as bad if you're willing to wait a bit. Token transfers are like 10$ if you set the gas price to around 120 Gwei, should validate within an hour or two.
The tricky bit is the exchanges, though in my experience, the worst was around 60$ fee for a swap at a busy time.