What does a broke person who will not be able to pay off their student loans for decades and who will never be able to afford a house care about being slightly less broke? Your life is a painful grind either way where you're just barely staying afloat. If you're stuck in poverty barring a risky long-shot hitting, then it's entirely logical and rational to take big risks with the little you do have.
The real problem isn't that stocks or crypto or any other financial tools exist, it's that so many Americans lack reasonable hope and opportunities for a better future outside of seeking out things that seem unthinkably risky to many people here.
Why not go to Vegas and play roulette then? At least there you know exactly what your odds and payouts are and there isn't a massive information asymmetry.
I just don't think saying "Don't put your money in ETFs where you can get returns of ~10% a year for 40 years barring mass catastrophe" is particularly valuable. Even someone putting 83$ a month into an SP500 index can expect to make almost 400K over 40 years. Whereas I would expect a person yolo'ing 1000 a year on random shitcoins and memestocks to lose $40K over 40 years.
Maybe I'm crazy but I think if you can find 1000 a year to throw away on pure gambles surely its a far better choice to invest that in something that's virtually a sure thing on long time scales?
Everyone is looking for get rich quick schemes which frankly short of starting the next Instagram in your basement simply don't exist.
The real problem isn't that stocks or crypto or any other financial tools exist, it's that so many Americans lack reasonable hope and opportunities for a better future outside of seeking out things that seem unthinkably risky to many people here.