I don’t disagree with your basic idea, but not being able to articulate alternatives so that you know when they make sense is going to hurt you.
We are possibly seeing a major failure mode for passive for the first time.
There’s a lot of advocacy for passive investing because it’s practically the only good option for retail investors. Managed funds can actually afford to advertise.
There are problems with passive investing becoming such a large portion of public investment, it is practically corporate welfare. But when the alternatives are at or around 2 and 20, with most performing worse than index funds, it’s irrational for the average person to do anything but passive investing.
If it's the first time it's failing then there's really nothing anyone can do to prepare for it, and I certainly wouldn't recommend laypeople to try to time the market.
In this story we determined that S&P is going to choose a path different that other ETFs. Does that mean these ETFs differ in quality? Which should you pick?
A conservative 10% return on a 2 million dollar investment is a very nice 200 000. A conservative 10% return on a 20 000 dollar investment is just 2000.
If you're not born rich in this world, there are but a few doors that are open to you to try to improve your station in life. Hard work will never help you out of the hole. Not even dangerous work. Nor will an education. At least with high risk investment you have a fair chance, and at worst you loose your savings and are back where you started. You're not going to lose your life or your limbs.