So, Microsoft is going to open a music store – what a surprise (not) there.

And now we’ll hear the caterwalling of Apple fan(atic)s, saying how the beast of Redmond is once again playing follow the (innovation) leader.

Whatever.

To me, what is interesting about this development – and all the music sites springing up now by heavy hitters – is that this is going to either force or ease the way for micropayments to really happen.

I just read an article today on micropayements on the MIT Technology Review. Followed by Gates’ admission today – at Comdex, but I don’t think it was part of his keynote – that MSN is going musical, where, there’s another big push to go micropayments.

On the other hand, there is the Microsoft tradition of doing it all themselves – it might leave micropayment companies – such as the start-up featured in the Technology Review article, Peppercoin – out in the cold.

Either way, it’s another sign that the time may finally be ripe for some – SOME – companies to take advantage of micropayments. It’s going to take a lot to get people pay for some things, simply because of the vast tapestry of the Web: Oh, you’re charging? I’ll go to one of 1,000 similar sites to get/read/browse this or that.

Web = free is currently hard-wired into us, and until there is more of a micropayment infrastructure in place and a demonstrated benefit of such, well, it might just be a tough sell.