What are XRP tokens for?

[DesmondHayes]

Could someone explain what's the purpose of the XRP token? When I use PayPal I don't first buy chips to operate their infrastructure for sending USD.
Say XRP has far lower fees than PayPal even with the fees for converting USD to XRP, instead of using PayPal and paying high fees, why not use PayRip 2.0 which will be using the Ripple network, with little fees? I'm not paying anyone in XRP after all, I'm paying in USD, so I'd rather go directly.