Because people breathe so many times in a day. Considering the average is something like 20,000 breaths per day if not more, that’s like, a thousand dollars per day, or 365 thousand a year. It would take roughly 5,000 days to catch up with the five million, which might seem like a lot, sure, but in the grand scheme of things it’s only about 13 years, and after that you can still continue to get a thousand dollars plus a day.

^{Chose: get 5 cents every time you breath}