[quickthrower2]

Having not used it, what is special about Robinhood? Online Trading platforms have been around since the 90s. Maybe earlier, but I was seeing them then. There wasn't much friction back then, other than needing to be physically located at home to have an internet connection (no wifi or mobile).

[mrep]

They were the first to offer no commission trades. That's why I have an account. Now that vanguard offers that for equities and they default to putting your money in a money market account where you get the interest, I plan to only use vanguard.

The Robinhood mobile app though is way better than vanguards. It looks like a native app and even updates prices every few seconds where as the vanguard mobile app is just a mobile website wrapper (or at least looks like it).

[quickthrower2]

Oh right, but you could do "spread betting" (similar to CFDs) back in the early 2000's in the UK. Commission free, but you pay the spread and some interest on borrowed money. I think they structured it as betting rather than investing so that customers would pay no tax on winnings. (Also not many people won!)