[jboog]

Yeah, I agree it's totally gambling.

There's also the thing where buying equity in a company can seem very simple because you see something like Apple where they made a cool thing and obviously their stock went up. People just have no idea about how complex the markets are.

They also don't remember the very smart people who claimed the Iphone would be quickly overtaken by Android and other cheaper alternatives (Clay Christensen predicted this a guy generally very smart on tech/business)

Hindsight always makes it seem like it was easy to pick the great companies that were OBVIOUSLY going to do well.

They don't understand how incredibly sophisticated professional investors are who dedicate their lives to it, and on average even THOSE people don't 'beat the market'.

[chii]

But people should be allowed the freedom to choose to gamble. Even if it's bad for them - as long as they own the responsibility, and not create a burden on soceity for doing so.