Firstly there are ~10-12 of the 200K TV stocks in a season so that translates to an almost simultaneous investment of ~$2.5m which's a sizeable part of $20m (which was just an eg anyway).
Secondly there was relative surety of most of them reaching at least $12 if not $14 or higher at which pt a small account (like mine back then) would sell & move on the money elsewhere since the remainder of the $2-3 move would take ages & capital was limited. But it was almost like a fixed income product vs risky assets like equity (eg movie stocks) & for a low capital account those are invaluable to ensure your acc doesn't reduce in size due to losses elsewhere. Now ~half of that quick sure income is gone ($10 to $12 vs $8 to $12).
3rd - one invests across the product classes here, mostly in movie stocks so after a few of those there's little left & you have to give up on some/do reduced qty till your capital builds but this was something easy to put max amount into even as a small acc. The $50K increase per TV stock translates to ~$600k-800K increase over a season's stocks.
I asked because in general it seems to me over a few months now there's possibly an attempt to make profits a bit tougher to get vs the past, which would be ok if everyone was starting from the same pt. But at present it'll only mean the rankings would change v little - the top 100 will always be so if making HSX$'s gets harder & the others might as well not try. That'd make the few new people that may actually try this game, give up quickly (not to mention the middling lot be more infrequent here). Not sure if a closed circuit is desirable to the decision makers. There's a legacy effect since 1997 that's hard to break.
