That whole paragraph was bizarre. Yeah, lots of people are doing things wrong, but there is a competitive industry of index funds and ETFs out there. I'm sure they could be squeezed a little bit more, but not much.
"Most people either pick individual stocks and bonds and expose themselves to high volatility, or pay very high fees to mutual fund managers and lose to the index anyway. Most people are also non-experts when it comes to portfolio rebalancing and tax optimization."
Education, clear UI, consistent metrics and prioritisation are all potential issues. Do all these services exist outside of your country? What if I move countries? How do I explain it to my mother? What if I only have $1000 to invest?
So we are going to make another choice?
What if I only have $1000 to invest?
Put it into your savings account because you need a rainy day fund.
When you have $3000 to invest, put it into Vanguard's S&P 500, and call it a day. You are already beating more than half the managed funds out there. You spend time with your kids.
This is slightly more complicated than YO, but only slightly.
A lot of the 401k providers just dump a list of 40 funds on your lap, and let you figure it out, but it's information overload.
I really want something that can help me decide what type of risk I can handle, and then properly choose funds / balance between all of my accounts. Financial advisors are able to do this, but software can do it better and cheaper.
Basically, I want something like Mint that connects to all of my investment accounts, and sends me an email once or twice a year with specific instructions for rebalancing.
It's missing the Mint-style auto-connect, but it largely does the rest of it (the actual hard math).
Telling people to just invest in an S&P500 ETF (metrics and comparison don't matter because people don't understand them anyway) doesn't seem like a great business, financial writers are already advocating it pretty regularly and investment in index ETFs is growing steadily.
Sure, but next ask "why." What is the motivation to provide metrics? Who will compile and compare them? How will they stay impartial? Who benefits?
We don't even have as much as a comprehensive internet offer comparison.