In the short-term, The Merge is not likely to reduce gas fees because the upgrade is about a change in the consensus mechanism (the way Ethereum validates transactions), rather than an increase or expansion of its capacity. In other words, The Merge will deprecate PoW and transition the blockchain to PoS, but this process is not expected to influence the blockchain’s capacity. Since gas fees are a byproduct of demand vs. network capacity rather than the way the blockchain validates transactions, The Merge won’t directly impact gas fees.