Tonghuashun is a trading app built for goal A — making you money. Its target users are non-A: people who lose money. Its effect is also non-A. Even I find it counterintuitive, yet it sits in plain sight: the app’s feeds are full of losing traders complaining and cursing.
The data plays along. Thirty-eight million monthly users, forty-plus minutes a day per user — stickier than mobile games. People used to end the night with a game; now they end it scrolling quotes.
Why the inversion? Because it never sold a money-making tool. It sells the script of “I’m making money.” Winners don’t need a script; only losers pay for one. And a script needs sequels — tomorrow’s market is the sequel. Next door it’s even blunter: those thousand-dollar AI stock terminals, a thing you could replicate with a free app and a few hundred dollars of tablet, sold at five times the price — with the buyer profile written plainly: middle-aged retail investors who’ve lost money, want to trade seriously, and lack a method.
Value investing’s solution is harsher: use no software at all. Software exists to make you look more; value investing demands you look less. The two goals are natural enemies. Warren Buffett doesn’t even carry a smartphone; he reads paper reports and still figures companies out.
So in the long run, the entire financial industry — for retail investors — is an entertainment business. It sounds outrageous. It’s just true. Except this one wears a suit and calls itself financial services.
