Thanks for getting us started bitsmichel.
You should pick people from varying time periods, interview them, and track the changes in motivations over time. The culture is evolving.
That is exactly what I intend to do. If you or someone you know are early adopters (pre 2012) who might be interested in participating, please let me know. The culture is certainly evolving, undergoing tremendous change, and I think it's important to make a record of the changes.
When I first got into BTC and scrypt mining, a guy in an IRC chat gave me .25BTC ($25 at the time) after a lengthy convo because "You're not an asshole," he said, and all he asked was that I pay it forward.
It blew my mind. I never asked for anything, and I couldn't figure out why the hell he did that, but then I realized that its part of the growing process. It's necessary to spread the coin around. For a lot of those early adopters, it wasn't about the money, it was about Bitcoin. By giving me some, he had recruited me, in a sense. I thought that was too cool.
So if you all have a story or know someone who does, chime in, or message me directly. As bg002h noted, I need people from all points in the history, from early adopters to newbies.