Is that true? $100 is such a small amount of money that you're completely at the mercy of the supply chain. When you have $100B to spend, you are the supply chain (or at least a major part of it). Big money always makes the rules. They're either making money off of you now or planning to in the future.

Now you might say, "but wait, plenty of products/companies have done poorly because I wouldn't give them that $100." But that's not true. In reality, product success is always in terms of big money -- it's just spread out over enough consumers who individually have the $100 buy/don't-buy option.

Another objection: "yeah, but I always hear about big money wasting $30M (for example) on something stupid." Maybe so, but remember the scale. $30M waste on $100B is the same as $0.03 on $100. Moreover, the stupid thing they're wasting money on may not be that stupid -- you just might not be privy to all the details.

All that may sound like it's bad, but I think it's pretty great system. I sell my products at a markup to get small money, then have the discretion to buy or not buy somebody else's stuff with the money I made. En masse, I form a part of the "big money" consumer group at Home Depot, Amazon, etc. that has power over the more centralized big money.