Alex swipes their card for coffee, again. Then lunch. Then groceries. The same brands, the same routines—money flowing out, nothing flowing back.
It’s not the spending that stings. It’s the asymmetry.
For years, we’ve accepted a broken equation:
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You pay 100 → They get in revenue
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You stay loyal → They gain shareholder value
But what if the math changed?
The Ownership Gap
Modern consumers don’t just want rewards points or cashback. They want what every founder, investor, and CEO takes for granted: skin in the game.
The frustration isn’t about cost—it’s about exclusion from the upside.
A Shift Beneath the Surface
The infrastructure now exists to rewrite this contract. To turn:
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Morning routines → equity
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Habits → holdings
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Loyalty → leverage
The question isn’t if this will happen, but who will do it right.
The New Consumer Mindset
Alex isn’t asking for much. Just alignment. Proof that their daily life—the subscriptions, the splurges, the can’t-live-withouts—is building something more than a corporate balance sheet.
The brands that understand this won’t just acquire customers. They’ll create stakeholders.