Energy drinks are addictive and the inputs are cheap.

I suspect that to some degree individual drinks will be boom -> bust, as newer brands cannibalize the market by having (or advertising) superior energy, more caffeine, better comedowns, etc., and with older drinks having a higher likelihood of bad publicity simply on account of having been around longer. MLMs like Herbalife are also operating in the space (all "loaded tea" shops are MLM), so obviously in cases like that there's a ton of pressure producing early growth.

Upgrading GPUs is addictive too - I haven’t been able to stop ever since I got my first one!

So are the inputs of GPU cheap.

Monster energy drinks net income is ~$1B. Intel/TSMC/etc have or have had net incomes many multiples of that.

Is there that much more potential left for energy drinks?

I would hope not for the sake of people’s health.

> Is there that much more potential left for energy drinks?

President Camacho has yet to come to power to authorize energy drinks for irrigation (because it's got electrolytes), so I'd say yes, there's still a ton of potential.

And then the become the central part of the economy.

Check Celsius out, it contains less sugar, more caffeine, they've been growing +100% YoY($CELH). There's more space than you could imagine.

I don’t see why a startup would be indicative of potential profits in this space, especially a miniscule business where it is expected to grow 100% YoY.

Coca Cola and Pepsi each seem to have profits in the $5B to $10B range, which can be a proxy for how much profit there exists in the space because everyone else is much smaller.

Maybe if these energy drinks displace all of coffee and tea, but I would be surprised. How much more caffeine will (or should) consume?

Selling sugar water that costs pennies to make for dollars per can is a business with excellent margins. The hardest part is figuring out how to market it.

"Liquid Death" is even better. Dollars per can of just water, no sugar. Of course, all of it is marketing, and they are really, really good at it.