I think this is the part where I lean towards it being not only flippers and speculators, but I do believe the majority of buyers are ‘tru collectors’ in that they aren’t prioritising financial gain. I agree there are eyebrows to be raised because, well, where were these people before? But my feeling is that the publicised big numbers was the hook* but not the reason for them staying.
I use the example of someone relatively new in discord who is aiming to collect every Blastoise card in PSA 10. Clearly that’s not a financially motivated choice; there are far more optimal ways to invest your money (within pokemon or not).
Of course we can never know the speculator:purist ratio, but this is what my gut is telling me. If it’s relevant it was the opposite in 2020.
Sorry this became quite long.
*Not particularly relevant to current discussion but I wanted to add:
I’ve noticed that the primary trigger for people to come back to pokemon as adults has changed. It was often the case that pokemon was a reminder of a happier/carefree time (childhood), which potentially coincided with someone going through a stressful time in present day.
Now I think that trigger is more that they’re aware of the money and want a piece of the action, but I don’t think that necessarily means they’re less likely to stick around.
You can go further and posit that the money is partly the trigger but also justification for enjoying pokemon as an adult. In the current world, expecting to make money is permission to pursue something. It can be really hard for some to sink serious time and money into a hobby with no expectation of getting anything material back. I could talk a lot about that but this is already an enormous tangent.