I still don't get how this is deemed 'screwing over'. Would the alternative of paying $11 in trading fees round trip on an order of 3 shares of Ford Motor Company be preferable to the $0.01 in worse order execution a Robinhood user gets instead? The transaction fees only make sense when you start placing relatively big trades, something 99.99998% of Robinhood users do not and will never do.
What Robinhood has done is cleverly found a more cost-effective means to allow poor people to get invested, and disrupted a previously uncompetitive industry in the process. Yes their gamification of the UI is likely a bad thing, but most people seem to be viewing the order-flow situation backwards.
Remember, the alternative is not free trades. The alternative is more expensive trades.
I think while Robinhood has benefited more users by giving them a cheaper way to access stock markets, users still feel betrayed, everytime such news gets out, especially after GME.
This perhaps could have been averted easily if Robinhood clarified their mechanism.
But in reality, their modus operandi has been to work with the big hedge funds and brokers.
What Robinhood has done is cleverly found a more cost-effective means to allow poor people to get invested, and disrupted a previously uncompetitive industry in the process. Yes their gamification of the UI is likely a bad thing, but most people seem to be viewing the order-flow situation backwards.
Remember, the alternative is not free trades. The alternative is more expensive trades.