After reading some of the previous discussion and reflecting on matter, it seems to me that our
NEM launch is a VERY BIG DEAL. Not only because of the highly important MILESTONE we will reach, but rather the interesting new phase we will enter. In fact, as our dev team is working hard to prepare things for beta, the marketing team is also working on some important plans and deals which should help jump-start the NEM economy right after launch.
I have no doubt that with this new phase, interest in NEM will naturally and steadily grow. As for who will become interested, I think the matter is a bit more complex. For it seems that when a coin goes through a natural growth process, both investors/contributors and speculators are drawn to it, and at least at the beginning, they are mostly undistinguishable. Moreover, the natural growth process seems to have found a place for both of these groups. Please consider the following very simplistic scenario: as contributors add value and do the things that are needed in order to move forward, speculators notice the effort and decide to capitalize on what they think will be a promising bet. The interesting thing though, is that once speculators decide on what they want, they start making noise and spreading the word about what they believe in. In the process, the market reacts, price goes up, and as an effect more speculators, as well as contributors hear about the coin and join. Now, repeat this cycle 100 times and you'll get an idea of how bitcoin came to be. So although at first the coin lives or dies based solely on the contributors effort, there comes a time when speculators are quite necessary, though certainly not sufficient, for the market to seriously expand and grow.
That said, I also think that once NEM is launched and distributed a more collaborative and realistic phase will begin. People will be able to tip each other, they will be able to post an idea and instantly raise some funds if they get enough Nemsters excited about it, they will be able to unite and build projects or just contribute 2 NEM's to some projects which are in progress, the possibilities are endless.
Right now the NEM economy is more of an emulation, lacking some important aspects which make real economies work(real skin in the game - real risk and reward). Once launched and distributed, the NEM economy comes to life. Each Nemster will become an agent, capable of being a creator or a consumer. Right now everything is a test - you lose your wallet, nothing happens, you receive 1000000 test NEM's, again, nothing happens. At launch the actual experiment begins, risk and reward will become real and undeniable. As a consequence, I think some intriguing things are bound to happen.