Comment by _DeadFred_

I saw a video recently that talked about something kind of strange and upsetting about the stock market.

With the rise of relatively low-risk ETFs and Index Funds, we get into this kind of strange situation where people who might be able to create value by creating businesses and products will instead just invest into the stock market. On an individual level, this is an objectively good decision; most new businesses fail and most of the ones that don't still don't beat the S&P 500 in growth, and even if you manage to match the S&P that required a lot of effort on your end vs. clicking three buttons on E-Trade. Yes, maybe you'll be one of the happy few who manage to actually grow faster than the S&P, and that's great, if someone in that boat is in that position I wish you all the future success in the world [1].

I'm not judging, I'm no better that the people I'm describing. I don't run a business and I just buy ETFs for that reason; it's relatively low-risk, high-return, and basically zero effort on my end. Now it's created this situation where we a) have an over-reliance on BigCos because all of our money is tied with them, b) a shortage of people who are willing to challenge these BigCos because the risk isn't worth it, and as such we have less diversity and competition in the market.

I have thought about starting a business dozens of times. I have a few projects that I think have a non-zero chance of being something cool that instead just languish in private repos because I am too much of a coward to actually try and make a go of it. I don't really know how to find investors, and even if I knew how I would have to prepare for the (very) high potential of them not funding me, and then I have to determine if it's worth self-funding, and at that point I could just take that same capital I would spend, throw it into VOO or QQQ and likely make more money without any effort.

I doubt I'm unique in this reasoning, especially on this forum. This is a relatively well-educated group (by internet standards) and I suspect a lot of people who frequent this forum are in the same boat that I am; I've seen some very interesting stuff in the "what are you working on?" threads here that I think could become businesses but mostly just end up living on Github accruing 100 stars and then languishing into obscurity.

[1] Unless you've made it to "billionaire" status in which case I doubt you did it in a way that I would describe as "ethical", and I very likely do not wish you any success.