Then let me take a crack at it. You are subtly moralizing against their lives as going 'nowhere,' suggesting that there is a 'somewhere' to go, that would be better than having remained. The reality is you are also on the treadmill, and cannot leave it. You have run faster than it has turned under you, and feel like moving closer to the front of the belt has given your life meaning, just as they have continued to run with their family and friends in a familiar constellation around them and taken meaning from that, but your fate, just like theirs, is to fall and be thrown off the back of the treadmill with everyone else.

"30 years on a treadmill and got nowhere" definitely has a negative connotation.