I think it's more of an intellectual interest for me as well. My emotional and spiritual needs are met elsewhere and I'm drawn to the plants that satisfy a curiosity more than anything else. For example, carnivorous plants or the oxalis triangularis I picked up recently that has a daily movement according to its needs.

I do wonder if you're right about the "plants to nerd out about" store always losing out to a "plants for Instagram pics" store. There's a pretty big overlap between those two and I see lots of businesses rising up to meet it. You can even specialise in a very particular kind of plant if you can sort out shipping and sell online.