I made plenty of money (and still do) holding US treasuries and other safe investments. You don't need to gamble on stocks to have income from cash which offsets rent.
For most of my life, fixed income was outperformed by inflation. Indexed funds returned double fixed income over that entire period. Either you are in your 20s or you aren't nearly as good at investing as you think.
I'm fine with keeping most of my post-tax cash pile in cash equivalents. I don't think you understand investing if your only measuring stick is returns. You do sound like a finance bro though given you took time out of your day to trash talk someone for something they didn't even claim.
If your investment return is less than the rate of inflation, you are literally getting poorer. Sort of defeats the purpose of an investment. It isn't much better than literally keeping it in your mattress. Just because you don't understand that, doesn't make it not true. And software I wrote probably has managed or touched your money at some point.
Ok, and? You don't manage money. You don't seem to understand risk tolerance and opportunity cost. You're also comparing near-inflation returns with cash at zero pct return.
I can see why you only write software and don't actually get to touch other folks' money. Good luck buddy.