any cryptocurrency can be used for "real payments"! even the shittiest and most broken projects out there. as long as there is a place that accepts them as payment.
but the real problem is not about some random place accepting them as payment, it is about whether people are going to actually use it. and in case of XRP i don't see anyone seriously using a centralized altcoin with a lot of problems while there are a lot of better and decentralized altcoins out there.
XRP is more like a pump and dump coin. I agree with having a lot of better alts than XRP being widely used as a payment option, but the fact that it could be easily pumped, since this coin has succeded in that particular area, maybe there are some merchant who willingly accepts it despite of the level of risks that it has.