Stock investing (i.e., owning stock for a long time, ideally with diversification, hoping to profit from new economic value created by the companies you own) is

Stock investing (i.e., owning stock for a long time, ideally with diversification, hoping to profit from new economic value created by the companies you own) is positive-sum, and I agree that it's beneficial to encourage that. Stock trading (i.e., buying and selling stocks over short periods, hoping to profit from short-term changes in price) is a zero-sum game of skill played against full-time professionals, with predictable results for an uninformed amateur. Do you really think that 22-year-old is going to buy $100 worth of SPY and watch excitedly for their quarterly fifty-cent dividend? Or will they make a bunch of emotional trades, each one transferring some fraction of their hard-earned money (not every time, but in an expected value sense) to a professional's algorithm? Robinhood's marketing and user interface are designed to encourage the latter, and I believe that's net harmful to their clients. I'd rather know nothing about the stock market than believe falsely that uninformed trading of single stocks was a good idea. Of course nothing stops you from using Robinhood to buy and hold an index fund; but to the extent their app is designed to encourage you not to, anyone who tries to use it that way is stealing cheese from mousetraps. New investors would be far better off going to Vanguard or similar, even if they have to save up a bit longer to meet the minimums.