[paulddraper]

Yeah. You don't own more or less of anything. Five sticks of gum, a car, 10 shares of $MSFT, a Mewtwo Ultra Rare.

You have exactly same assets as before. The businesses of which you are a fractional owner have the same fundamentals.

But other people won't trade other assets for yours at the same rate.

[z0r]

Don't the invested dollars poured into infrastructure that won't yield gains represent a loss of value? Especially if the same investment could have been put to work somewhere more fruitful.

[paulddraper]

It's (1) a loss of expected value (2) misspent resources.

You spent $X to buy RAM chips, expecting that you could produce $Y with it. But you didn't. So you (1) failed to realize the expected value $Y, and (2) misallocated $X, which in hindsight you would have used differently.

Again, that's all learning that future expectations do not match reality.

The decision/action happened earlier, and is separate from the realization. Attributing the material loss to the realization is misplaced.