3 ms·

So he knew so little about the kind of investing he was doing that he didn't even understand what would cause his account to gain or lose money? He shouldn't h

by kar5pt 6y ago

So he knew so little about the kind of investing he was doing that he didn't even understand what would cause his account to gain or lose money? He shouldn't have been playing around with markets he didn't understand. I'm not sure it makes sense to blame RH for this (which will likely result in regulators making it harder for not-rich people to invest).

curryst 6y ago
This is pretty cold. The alternative take is that he was using a service with such poor UX that it appeared he had lost $750,000, despite the fact that he would have likely lost almost nothing. They also failed to educate users that that was a potential scenario and that it was normal, or to filter out users that were not experienced enough to know that. And, as a result of those, someone died. > He shouldn't have been playing around with markets he didn't understand. I'm not sure it makes sense to blame RH for this (which will likely result in regulators making it harder for not-rich people to invest). And children shouldn't play in the street, but we still reduce the speed limit to 20mph because they're going to do it anyways. I don't want to cut normal people out of these markets (I'm a normal person too after all), I just think there needs to be some kind of guardrails on any financial instrument that is capable of severe financial ruin, or behaves in a way that can make it look like you are financially ruined. It doesn't even have to be crazy. I'd be pretty happy if they just made like a 15 minute long video you had to sit through, and then there was a quiz at the end. "Under what conditions will your balance go negative and then go back up?", "What are your maximum losses on $1,000 worth of shorts?", maybe some stuff about how the underlying transactions work. They can still have it fully automated.

3 ms·

So he knew so little about the kind of investing he was doing that he didn't even understand what would cause his account to gain or lose money? He shouldn't h

by kar5pt 6y ago

curryst 6y ago
This is pretty cold. The alternative take is that he was using a service with such poor UX that it appeared he had lost $750,000, despite the fact that he would have likely lost almost nothing. They also failed to educate users that that was a potential scenario and that it was normal, or to filter out users that were not experienced enough to know that. And, as a result of those, someone died. > He shouldn't have been playing around with markets he didn't understand. I'm not sure it makes sense to blame RH for this (which will likely result in regulators making it harder for not-rich people to invest). And children shouldn't play in the street, but we still reduce the speed limit to 20mph because they're going to do it anyways. I don't want to cut normal people out of these markets (I'm a normal person too after all), I just think there needs to be some kind of guardrails on any financial instrument that is capable of severe financial ruin, or behaves in a way that can make it look like you are financially ruined. It doesn't even have to be crazy. I'd be pretty happy if they just made like a 15 minute long video you had to sit through, and then there was a quiz at the end. "Under what conditions will your balance go negative and then go back up?", "What are your maximum losses on $1,000 worth of shorts?", maybe some stuff about how the underlying transactions work. They can still have it fully automated.