The endgame was that the hedge funds who overshorted this stock would eventually have to pay massive prices to close out their positions. Retail brokerages coordinated this morning to turn off buy orders in order to bail out the hedge funds.
I guess that while this is theoretically possible (that the retail investors walk away with a healthy profit, at least in aggregate), this is complicated by existing shareholders cashing out (which basically is a transfer of money to them). It also supposes that all the retail investors can act in unison and won't break rank (which will cause the prices to tank).
The endgame isn't about this specific instrument, but the pattern of market manipulation (hell, economy manipulation) which it represents in the context of leveraged short selling alongside a 'too big to fail' regulatory regime.
The endgame is to use collaborative economic force to push rent-seekers out.
Nope! The price only has to stay high until eob Fiday when ~20 million shorts expire and have to be covered by the stupidly inflated price. Then the price will tank and those with short positions will be holding the bag.
Existing investors only get paid when they sell. As soon as they sell they're out of the game. There is no 'perpetually' in this scenario.
Where it can continue to rise is where there are those holding short positions that need to buy shares to cover those positions. They can only buy at a price the seller agrees, and in a short squeeze situation the seller can demand pretty much any price they want (in theory)