Totally agreed, on both points. I think selling "fake meat" to meat-eaters is missing the point (as they could just as easily eat the real thing), and selling "fake meat" to vegetarians is a weak offer (as it reduces them to imitating meat-based recipes).

As an example of your second point, one of the more succesful alternatives in NL is Valess [1], which mostly comes in the "burger" form factor but does not try to sell itself as imitation meat.

[1] https://www.frieslandcampina.com/en/brands/valess/

But does that change if the fake is $3 and the real one is $15? I think a lot of people in the front end of these startups trying to create almost identical to meat and dairy products are looking at that possibility in the not so far future as to why they will be successful. As opposed to something like a boca burger that is more intended to fit inside a hamburger bun as opposed to being exactly like meat.

I say this as someone who hasn't eaten meat for well over a decade and a really close meat substitute sounds gross.

At social situations (where pollination between meat eaters and vegetarians occurs), that would make the appeal even tougher. Eating meat then becomes a way of showing off financial status, even more than it already is ("we grilled up this real nice cut of blah blah").

I say this as a vegetarian, but I'm having a hard time seeing cost being a real advantage for imitation meat. It seems like more of a first world problem - if one cannot afford meat, they're better off spending resources on replacing its nutritional value rather than its taste.