ETH will allow $2T of underground economy to become more structured (and possibly less underground) through DAOs.http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/23/americas-2-trillion-shadow-economy-is-the-recessions-big-winner/If it captures 1% of that $2T, it is equivalent to $20B, which would put ETH somewhere around $150. Those who sell for $2 will shit bricks, eat sand and may even commit suicide in the years to come. If it captures 10% of that ETH will be $1500. I know it sounds crazy, but so did the Internet in 1995.
Once it's launched their main focus will be on scalability, which I think is the real reason crypto is not ready for mainstream. Once they can handle 100K TPS (and I'm sure they will), it's game over.
Do you mean that the price alone determines whether a thing would be future? I don't think so. There have been so many fuss about this ethereum thing, though I wouldn't deny the fact that it is interesting, but most of the news about it seems to be overrated and exaggerated.
When it comes into businesses or marketing, competition is allowed for the strongest to take the lead, yeah, ETH has been a good project from time, but in this instance coming to knock Bitcoin out will not be that easy to accomplish.