Redditors are right about the unfairness of the market

Redditors are right about the unfairness of the market
bloomberg.com

In a democracy that values free speech and the liberty of association, combined with the Internet, it was inevitable, but then the bar for what counts as market manipulation punishable under the law is raised considerably.

The injustice of modern markets can be explained with an analogy:

Imagine that you don't have much money and you open a coffee shop; assume that it's your only stream of income... Now imagine that a few years later, a multi-millionaire opens up a coffee shop right next to yours as a passion project. The multi-millionaire has many other streams of passive income. They see your coffee shop is doing well and they feel hurt by this. So the multi-millionaire decides to start buying even higher quality coffee beans, buying more expensive coffee machines, they start dropping the prices too and advertising all over social media; now they make a loss but it doesn't matter to them, their net worth is still increasingly rapidly thanks to their other sources of income; now all the customers are going to his coffee shop instead of yours. You are forced to close your coffee shop. The multi-millionaire is pleased with himself; all his friends congratulate him. Is there anything this guy can't do? no wonder he is a multi-millionaire! Once you're out of business, he can start dropping coffee quality to even lower than before and raising prices, you're now forced to work for one of his companies as corporate livestock; as corporate livestock you add negative value to society (you're now a cog in the money laundering machine) but you're getting paid more than what you did when you were adding value to society.

Many of the multi-millionaire's other businesses benefit from government contracts, grants, 0% interest loans, reserve bank bailouts, international capital flight, undetected money laundering schemes, market manipulation by political insiders, etc... The multi-millionaire's edge in the coffee business was founded entirely on them having an unfair advantage in other industries. If there are enough multi-millionaires and wealth inequality is high, all industries will be smothered out of existence by big finance who will always have the upper hand thanks to their access to easy money; all industries and society will be worse off. It's no different from feudalism.

Funds that own full percentage points in stocks making pure top-down orchestrated moves vs hobby investors reaching out into the void with their info that may or may not gain traction are simply not in the same league.