We know for sure that "bad behavior" is fairly common in this unregulated "marketplace". If it's easy and possible and profitable, someone is going to do it.
This alone is sufficient to deter a lot of sensible investors.
The so-called regulated marketplace only has a thin veneer of propriety. Naked short selling is rampant, many financial statistics are entirely self-reported with barely a slap on the wrist for intentional fabrications, market makers have privileges to manipulate the price that normal folks don't have access to, etc. And one time the plebs got one over on the financial class (the GME thing) they literally "shut it down".
>And one time the plebs got one over on the financial class (the GME thing) they literally "shut it down".
That's not what happened. Robinhood (and a couple others) weren't prepared for a stock with no fundamentals to be bought by everyone, so they didn't have the collateral for it that was required.
It wasn't as nefarious as it seemed at first, but the fact is the systems of investment currently in place do not allow for plebs to manipulate it in their favor. I was only an observer rooting for the common man, but I still have a difficult time seeing Robin Hood as a useful tool when they were not able to execute basic buying of an EFT on an open market.
We know for sure that "bad behavior" is fairly common in this unregulated "marketplace". If it's easy and possible and profitable, someone is going to do it.
This alone is sufficient to deter a lot of sensible investors.