If it appreciates just due to inflation you didn't actually make any money. Unless your investment beats inflation, you lose value.

I don't dispute that all. I'm just ok with that being the outcome; if it keeps up with inflation then it's still better than storing it in a bank, and the thing that would upset me more than "not gaining" would be "actively losing".

Now obviously, if it drops below from what I paid for it and then it takes inflation to catch up, then yeah, that's definitely "lost money", but that's just the risk of the stock market, especially with individual stocks. I also think that if it crashes, Nvidia might still have another surge eventually, even if it doesn't get back to its full glory.

I definitely would not buy new Nvidia stock at its current price though.