Companies pay for retail order flow because retail is dumb; and, on average, is not going to have trades better than random noise. This is ideal for market make

Companies pay for retail order flow because retail is dumb; and, on average, is not going to have trades better than random noise. This is ideal for market makers so market makers pay for it and even offer better spreads to retail. Market makers don't want to be on the other side of "smart money" trades. tl;dr you're not getting screwed by Robinhood selling your order flow, you're getting a benefit.