Everyone wants to make you an addict. Some people sell illicit drugs on the black market and want you to become addicted to them so they can profit from you. The dealers naturally focus on drugs that are physically addictive because they are often the hardest to kick. When they do manage to addict you to them that becomes harder and harder over time. For drug lords and dealers, this is heaven. This virtually guarantees that all customers will be regulars, at least for as long as they survive. For the addict, it depletes the quality of their life. They start to live from one fix to the next. The problem for the dealers is the illegality of the product. Staying in business as a dealer requires a lot of care, caution, and expense. Additionally, much of the total addressable market (TAM) is turned off by drugs’ bad reputation. So what do you do?
If the problem is legality, make legal drugs. The drugs sold in pharmacies are legal and in many cases no less addictive. There’s a drug for every complaint and three dozen for the common cold viruses. Some, like a simple nasal spray, are addictive and can lead to a chronic condition which “locks” you in for life. It’s the same basic business model as the street dealer but with less friction, lower risk, and much better optics. The barrier to entry is that the clients have to be “sick”.
Now consider supermarkets, where the market is perhaps saturated, but the TAM is almost 100% of the population – everyone eats. Junk food can be quite addictive and can make its users sick. Sick junk food junkies might turn to pharmaceuticals without changing their habits, compounding the problem. Now the cycle is complete. As bad as such addictions might sound, and as widespread as they are, the current global addiction is yet worse: the addiction to digits pandemic.
The first case of addiction to digits is in terms of fiat currencies. They have the benefit of transacting with everyone in a particular country. It is very convenient to use those digits as a medium of exchange. Those digit addicts usually say: “I can’t buy anything with bitcoin, so I am not going to buy any.” They are saying, “I am addicted to the benefit of a convenient medium of exchange even though my purchasing power will deteriorate.”
Many people realize that money is usually static. It’s active when people are transacting and passive when they’re just keeping it for later. To be an effective store of value, money needs to preserve (or grow!) its purchasing power over time. A person should not earn the same money twice. When I have savings I should not be forced to actively manage it. So whole market segments focus on the passive use of money. It is strange how the system forces you to actively use your money to solve the passive use – it kind of defeats the purpose. Still, you can’t let it degrade because of inflation. Here there are a few main categories – bonds, real estate, equities, gold, and art.
The bond’s benefit is its promise to return more digits after some period. “Guaranteed” by the state. And they truly do! They give you the benefit of increased digits and at the end of the period even with the more digits, your purchasing power is less than when you started. Still, it beats the ones that just saved. The bond digit addicts will not buy bitcoin because bitcoin in cold storage pays no interest.
