Did I just pay $12 for a failed transaction?

Maybe I'm just a dumb noob that lost an insignificant amount. That's fine, I'll survive. Not giving the amount a second thought. No, my problem here is with the system.

My problem is why I was not made aware that a failed transaction USES the gas and it can never be returned. My problem is that it takes A LOT of expensive gas to perform a transaction and it's up to pure chance (unless you pay A LOT) wether it succeeds or not. This is something everyone else just knows? Was I supposed to understand this somehow? I certainly do now.

And now that I learnt my lesson, my eth is stuck in metamask. I can't move those funds anywhere without reducing them to half their value. Ethereum, for me, even at a small amount, has lost me more than on any of my other investments. And that was BEFORE I got to use it for anything during a perfectly normal series of transactions.

You people enjoy your gas fees, I'm going back to other networks and crypto that have reasonable fees that don't rob you on smaller amounts. Try transferring XRP some time, you'll be surprised when you pay less than $0.5 for a transaction that WORKS.