So the consensus is that investing in xrp is a bad idea - then don't.
It has nothing to do with using ripple - you just need 300xrp to make hundreds of thousands of transactions in whatever currency you choose, including bitcoin. You just need to trust the gateway you use.
xrp is a bad investment by design. you only need a trivial amount of xrp to use ripple.
You don't need to invest in xrp to use ripple.