Things are just starting.
There's nothing on the market yet, corps are still building up, most everyone is still in light bots.
It's a sandbox. We players create the content. We've only been here for a few days so there's not much to do yet.
I'd say right now it's all about the EPs, but they come slowly and nobody has a lot of them so things are a bit quiet right now.
First of all the resource market needs to get settled in. For this to happen miners are first going to have to reach the miner mechs and heavy mechs. Once this happens manufacturers can start focussing on specific products and start cranking out big numbers. When this happens the PvE people can start buying bigger bots on a larger scale and start raking in the NICs. Which in turn allows the miners and industrialists to start forming the economy because there's finally a demand for masses of ammo, bots and modules. This in turn will allow the PvPers to really get started as competition will bring the prices to a natural level on the market and the PvE content will supply sufficient NICs for them.
So right now things are slow while people build up sufficient EP to settle into their chosen professions with enough support skills to allow them to function efficiently.
As a hardcore player you now have the opportunity to be the first player to do so many things and get the related benefits from that.
As a casual player you have the opportunity to start stocking up NIC and EP so that once the market settles you can get right down to your chosen business without needing any additional time to prepare.
See it as a colonisation. First the hardcore scouts move in and explore and map the lands. All the while the casual settlers wait at base camp and prepare themselves to populate the lands. Once the hardcore scouts have started things up the casual settlers move in and will mostly take over all but the most dangerous areas where the hardcore scouts will still reign supreme.
*Insert really awesome sig here*