1) Fair point. This is partly why I leaned more heavily on the tech example, because its a sustained 30 year trend of the same phenomenon. So it works as a counterpoint to anyone taking issue with using a short term example.

2) Why would they take on less debt?:

• Debt will be accurately priced. Interest rates will be high when it's actually accounting for the expected growth, rather than massively manipulated down by money printing and encouraging enormous wasting of resources.

• Savings rates will be high, because money increases in value over time. So there will be large pools of sustainable capital available for truly valuable endeavors.

• Resources will be affordable. The debt loop is a feedback mechanism of:

[debt is issued to pay for things -> things get more expensive -> people with savings can't afford them -> more debt is issued to afford the overly expensive things -> things get even more expensive -> more debt is issued for new buyers -> society concludes that without debt they'd never be able to afford anything]

Rinse and repeat until we've done this dance for half a century and everything feels like the world is collapsing. The simple fact of the matter is with better savings rates and far less debt manipulation, it would be easier to start a business without enormous amounts of (or potentially any) debt.