Precisely. Payment processors gatekeeping the collection of small donations is soon to be a solved problem thanks to cryptocurrency. I mistrust anything that purports to enable something like this via centralised banking, primarily because it will let regulators of unrelated jurisdictions and large corporations/banks control and surveil the transactions. It's either crypto, or this.
I'm skeptical if the problem is technical about micropayments.
Let's assume we have some hypothetical zero fee universal payment platform. You CAN send a developer 3 cents because you like his work.
But now you've got the psychological barrier-- people don't want to think about spending 3 cents, even if they aren't bothered by the cost in the abstract. Then you need to make it a cultural norm-- that sending 3 cents is a legitimate gesture of gratitude and not unintentionally offensive or sarcastic.
IMO, the lack of micro (and I mean micro on order of 3 cents, like you mentioned) payment platforms is what kept such tiny donations from being normalised. My theory is that it will become normalised in certain circles, now that it's technically possible.
Even if it's a very, very thin trickle of donations, I would still take it as evidence that someone appreciates my work enough to think "hey, I should really send some money this guy's way, he's helped me out with this software/blog post". Allowing transactions on the order of single cents mitigates the psychological barrier of making some donation at all to the highest extent possible.
