Eg. Burger joints without veg options are losing sales when a group including a vegetarian slips the meal instead of getting an impossible burger.
There are non-smokers who use nicotine gum; I'm one of them. Similar effect to caffeine with a lower half-life, so it's suitable to have later in the day. I'm sure that we're a small group, but if nicotine didn't have the specter of cigarettes hanging behind it, I'd imagine it could be quite a large market.
Plant-based meat is sort of the opposite. Real meat has the specter behind it, so there's a good funnel of people into the product. Furthermore, any kind of taste that's above "edible" eventually gets people acclimated; they expect and learn to enjoy it. I can't prove that on an individual basis, but the plant-based meat market is growing at a healthy clip and has been around for several years, which suggests a lot of repeat buyers. You'd have to provide some kind of evidence to say "eventually they'll graduate", as there's no indication of that so far.
It drives me a little bit crazy that people think nicotine itself is what's harmful about cigarettes. The myth is slowly eroding but the common knowledge about nicotine — aside from the reality that it is addictive — remains directionally wrong (as common knowledge often is).
Nicotine could be considered bad because its addictive qualities make smoking happen more frequently, but rising blood pressure is a small piece.
I think of this stuff as none of these things. It's nicotine gum.
Nicotine gum won't ever replace cigarettes, nor will people who don't smoke start chewing it.
This is a product for people trying to transition away from a meat-heavy diet. It's never going to be 100% the same, but it's close enough to reduce the cravings. Eventually they'll graduate to healthier, cheaper, and (arguably) better tasting vegetarian products that don't resemble meat at all.
The motivations for cutting back on meat don't matter. Just like there's a market for nicotine gum, there's a market for this.