Robinhood Is the Facebook of Investing. You're the Data, Not the Customer

> Schwab earned 1.4% of revenue from payment for order flow, TD Ameritrade about 8.4%, and ETRADE about 6.1%.

It turns out that commissions were ~50% of revenue at IKBR and in 2018:

> 6.8% at Schwab, 28% at TD Ameritrade, and 17% at ETRADE

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/6/26/how-brokerages-make-mone...

I’m sure RH had more order flow to sell (zero-commissions = more trading) and securities lending of shorted stocks must be incredibly profitable.

But assuming they must* be doing something much different than the other brokers to have $0 commissions is a myth.

Reality is that every discount broker would have had substantial revenue to work with without commissions, but didn’t have any competitor to push them to do that until RH came along.

From what I understand so far, this is likely a misleading take on what happened.

Also, the author falls into the same trap as other reporters--not accounting for the other brokerages that did the same "shut it all down" things.

Then there's this "you're the product" meme, which is really being stretched thin these days, applied to all kinds of situations. When you look at the details, RH is not the same as a free service like Facebook.

(Beyond which you can even argue that you _are_ the customer on Facebook, depending on what you're doing on the platform. And doing so will also help you better understand how Facebook works, which "summing it all up" memes never really promised to do in the first place)

Looking at "free": I pay for RH Gold, meaning I pay a fee plus interest rate. The customer service has been fine. They refer to me as a customer in their communications. They update me on market conditions and send emails reminding me to do things like update my trusted contact information and look after other important details.

It's not the only brokerage I use, but it's easily a better customer experience than other brokerages in those ways and others. The app alone strikes a great balance between "not useful enough" and "overburdened with interface depth."

> Update: A representative for both Citadel and Citadel Securities told Inc. that these are completely separate companies with a firewall between them.

Could the writer not have asked about this before hitting the Publish button?