this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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You go back in time to when you're living paycheck to paycheck and zero financial literacy. You convince yourself to invest $100/month in Amazon no matter what, because it will be worth it. You eat nothing but instant ramen, forego preventative care, get sick from malnutrition. Your quality of life is horrible because you forego basic necessities to invest in Amazon. The dot com bubble wipes out 90% of Amazon's value but you continue to invest because your past self told you about this, but if you just endure, Amazon will recover and you will be a millionaire.
In this timeline, Amazon never recovers and goes bankrupt. On Twitter, you read a post about George Shaheen's wedding, and how he's entitled to his billions, despite predatory and exploitative practices, because his wealth could have been yours. If you had only invested $100/month since 1996 into WebVan, you'd be a millionaire.
Investing is, at the end of the day, a gamble.
Or: Everyone decreases their discretionary spending to invest in companies that make consumer goods.
As a result, few people are buying the products these companies sell, like books and iPods, and they don't become successful.
I understand not everyone can afford to gamble $25 a week but it's not really the difference between eating ramen and eating steak. It's more like the difference between eating ramen and eating rice. It's not going to improve your life dramatically, your health is still going to suffer and it's not going to cover the cost of preventative care in the US.
$25 a week on groceries in 1997 is around $50 today based on currency inflation, not even accounting for purchasing power. That could easily make the difference between a nutritious diet and one that leads to chronic health conditions for people living paycheck to paycheck. In 1997, the average weekly expenditure on food per person in the US was $34. You could probably have survived off of $15/wk for food back then and maybe find an extra 2-3hr of minimum wage to meet your $25 investment, but it wouldn't have been pretty.
Fun fact, a $25 steak today in the US cost about $8.50 in 1997.
The key lesson here is that anyone can find $25 / month to waste on WebVan stock.