If that's true, they should just transfer all of that into a Vanguard account. Robinhood isn't giving them anything in their use case, but they have every incentive to try to "gamify" their trading behavior, which Vanguard has neither the incentive nor, frankly, the software agility to do.
Yeah, I don't disagree with that; I think they got RobinHood awhile ago due to the payment-for-order-flow commission-free stock purchases, and Vanguard doesn't seem sufficiently-better to them.
Yep, there's a better "timeline" where Vanguard were the ones to make an app with a super easy onboarding experience, and used gamification to create a giant boom in young people buying and holding boring index fund ETFs (which is already commission-free on Vanguard itself).
Yeah, preaching to the choir here, I have a Vanguard account, I mostly buy Vanguard ETFs or index funds.
That said, assuming that the person doesn’t treat Robinhood like a gambling app, avoid margin and options, and only buy boring ETFs on there, it doesn’t really seem like it’s fundamentally different.
Yep. But I think it's like going to a casino "just for the free drinks". I'm sure some people pull it off, but everything in there is set up to get you to, ya know, play the games.
