The situation in Seattle does not support this view, and I know many small business owners here. Sure, some businesses are exactly as you describe but that is v

The situation in Seattle does not support this view, and I know many small business owners here. Sure, some businesses are exactly as you describe but that is very far from all businesses. Many businesses have permanently closed their doors, and just as importantly, all of their capital was destroyed in the process so they no longer have the means to start a new business. The financial structure of many types of business intrinsically cannot absorb a couple of months of shutdown, it literally makes that investment a total loss to the owner. Many of these small business owners have almost all of their net worth in these businesses, it isn't like they are independently wealthy. You are seriously underestimating the scale of the destruction of capital that has occurred in the small business community. People without capital cannot afford to open a new small business. Most of them are not FAANG engineers, they don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars lying around to try again.