Question
If PayPay goes public, a lot of people will probably want to invest.
It’s a service many people already use every day.
Does that make it a good investment opportunity?
Or is that just hype?
Ossan’s answer
Using a product and investing in a company are two different experiences.
That difference confuses many people.
PayPay is convenient.
You scan your phone.
The payment finishes instantly.
No coins, no counting.
Convenience creates affection.
And affection easily turns into investment enthusiasm.
But the stock market doesn’t reward affection.
It rewards expectations being exceeded.
A company can be popular and still disappoint investors
if expectations were too high.
That’s why big IPOs feel exciting and uncomfortable at the same time.
Everyone knows the product.
Which means everyone already has a story about its future.
Some stories are optimistic.
Some are cautious.
The stock price becomes the battlefield between those stories.
From the outside it can look dramatic.
But from another angle, it’s just a familiar cycle.
A technology becomes part of everyday life.
Then the financial world arrives
and tries to measure its future.
Meanwhile, most people keep doing the same thing they did yesterday.
Buying coffee.
Scanning their phone.
And not thinking about the stock market at all.