The interesting thing about that observation is that it's very much about how the internet get's used in the West. In China where a lot of internet use happens in internet cafés where uses pay the internet café by the hour micropayments for virtual goods are used more frequently than in the West.
Additionally transaction costs are a big deal when it comes to micropayments. Paypal's micromayment fee is 5% + $0.05 per transaction. If we would have cheap micropayment there a chance that a greater ecosystem of services that need micropayments can grow.
Bitcoin did promise being cheap but still have some substantial transaction costs. On the other hand Ripple (https://ripple.com/) provides the opportunity of a cost of $0.0001 per transaction.
Regarding Ripple, I thought that in the United States, financial institutions were required to know their users' identities. I don't see how this isn't blatantly illegal.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.