I think the hardest part for people when they approach Ripple, is that they are approaching it like a currency start-up (like Bitcoin).   A new Bitcoin-like currency could be released open-source and no specific amount of users would be required to have it be used as a currency (in fact this happens every day on this sub-forum).   However, when you are looking at something as a payment system that includes all currencies then adoption of the payment system is a priority and a requirement for it to be a success.   And until that happens the currency inside that system is essentially worthless (it's only worth right now is speculative and for transaction fees for the small number of Beta testers).

The successful approach to each of these two scenarios is not the same.