Do leverage pools force net negative outcomes? How are leveraged futures profits payed? Pre-note: Although I am trying to make this question general, in the case that there are any ambiguities, I would like to direct this question toward cryptocurrency futures trading platforms that offer leverage

In general, when it comes to trading, one can make the statement &quot;for every person that gains money, someone else loses money&quot;.
What this means is that the net outcome of an entire system is zero, i.e the profits and losses sum to zero.
This is indeed the case between two time periods if the opening and closing price of a stock happens to be the same. However, if the closing price is greater than the opening price, then the net outcome in that time window is positive/profit, and vice versa.
So in simple terms, if the general trajectory of a price is upwards then there are more people making profit than making losses.
In general, when the economy is going well, you do expect more people to be making profits than making losses.
However, this begs the question, how is this net positive outcome achieved when trading with leverage pools?
Those that put money into these pools are expected to be able to eventually take that money out (let's forget for a moment that they also intend to make interest).
However, if more people are making profit than making losses, doesn't money have to be taken from the pools to be paid out to gainers, which results in the available money in the pools shrinking? Is this the case, and if so how does this not pose problematic? What solutions are used to prevent this in these pools?
The only solution I can think of is to force the system to be a net zero outcome (where there are equal gainers and losers) or a net negative outcome (where there are more losers than gainers). This solution could be achieved through transaction fees, funding fees, lending fees, etc. Is this the case in these pools, is the net outcome forced to not be positive? If so, wouldn't people be less likely to use these leverage pools?
One of the things that makes me confident when investing money is that long-term (assuming the economy is going well), there are more gainers than losers. Is it possible to still have this confidence in leverage pools? Or are there more losers than gainers? Because it seems to be that you can't have this confidence, because it seems to me that leverage pools have to force a net zero or net negative outcome.
It would be great to get clarity on this, please let me know if my question is too complicated and needs improvement.

Edit: This question seems to apply more to future/perpetual markets, where you are in a closed system. When working with the actual underlying asset, profits are also gained from selling to people outside the leverage exchange you are using, so this problem doesn't seem to exist here.
Warning
I am currently editing this answer, as I feel like I might have come to incorrect conclusions. (Maybe I didn't, but I am putting this warning in place in case I did). I hope to update this answer with more information soon.

Answer

It appears that a futures market is a zero-sum game.

Futures markets
the sum of all the long positions must be equal to the sum of all the short positions. In other words, risk is transferred from one party to another is a type of a zero sum game


Zero-sum game
a zero-sum game is a mathematical representation of a situation in which each participant's gain or loss of utility is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the utility of the other participants. If the total gains of the participants are added up and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero

See also another interesting question related to this topic: Where does the profit come from in short selling futures?
Conclusion
When it comes to futures markets, whenever you gain, someone else is losing. This differs from spot markets where, if the general price trajectory is upwards, you can gain without someone else losing. Of course a market cannot have infinite growth so eventually it will stagnate or come down, but as long as it doesn't drop to zero, there is a net-profit outcome. But a futures market always has a net-zero outcome.
With futures markets it is more important than ever to ask yourself why you think you'll be the one gaining and not the one losing. with spot markets, it is possible for more people to gain than to lose, and may be considered less risky if this is the case (long-term investments often match this critera).
In futures markets, funding fees appear to be an example of how gains and losses are redistributed to ensure a zero-sum outcome.

Interesting follow up question: Can futures markets exist that are not zero-sum?