But without even the pretense of funding businesses and actually participating in the economy. Your money can grow on hot air and wishes alone! Why don't we give all people some bitcoin, so everyone can grow richer and richer without doing anything.
I have a plan to double the US GDP in one year:
1. I'll pay you $1 million to sing a song for me.
2. You pay somebody else $1 million to sing a song for you.
3. Continue doing this for n turns.
4. The last person pays me $1 million to sing them a song.
People indulge a lot of strange and wrong ideas about economics and, not surprisingly, those bad ideas are typically well aligned with their preferred world views.
The other comment had it right though - taxes would kill this scheme.
...with no more veracity than your hypothetical. You don't understand what GDP measures. You've allowed yourself to believe that the economists involved are naive. You are correct, however, that this sort of bad thinking is common. Very common.
When you pay for entertainment it's 100% included in GDP the same way as when you pay for somebody to inspect your car.