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Comment by spelunker | Hacker News Reader

Trading is how brokers make money. It shouldn't surprise you that this is Robinhood's business model.

I totally agree with your investment strategy, and you can do that on Robinhood, by the way.

However the other online Brokers don't call themselves "Robinhood" and claim to be the champion of the little guy while simultaneously encouraging you into a strategy that has been proven to lose over the long run.

Use the advisor (robo or human) services of any of the top online brokers and they will recommend you put your money in index funds.

Also, putting together a "long term" portfolio of indexes at Robinhood assumes that Robinhood will be around offering free trades for the next 40 years. Otherwise you're looking at hefty capital gains taxes to transfer when they pivot or go belly up.

There once was a company called Zecco...

> Otherwise you're looking at hefty capital gains taxes to transfer when they pivot or go belly up.

you should be able to account transfer out without causing a taxable sale.

how well that will go in the event they pivot or fail and have to transfer your assets over to some backup service is of course unknown.

If I'm not mistaken trading (commissions) is not where they make their money, which is why most of them offer free trades now in some capacity to compete. If they don't you call them up and tell you are going to someone else and they will give you free trades. They make their money by having your money in their account. This gives them credit with other banks and allows them to trade on margin or borrow or lend and charge interest.

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