Options, to put it simply, are about time value slowly eating away at you. The buyer may see the right direction but not necessarily profit, because every day they are being "charged" for expiration; the seller is like running a slow rent collection shop, but a big wave of volatility could wipe out all the rent collected so far... Everyone understands this, but I still prefer to first figure out: am I betting on volatility, or am I betting that time is on my side? Recently, the debate over pledge/sharing safety with the "compound yield" has been quite intense. I see it also resembles a seller's mindset: steadily adding layers of yield during normal times, but when something big happens, the risk is compounded, not linear. Anyway, when I take the buyer side now, I force myself to set a latest point to give up, or else time will close my position for me.