Comment by irjustin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by irjustin | Hacker News Reader

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> You don't see Vanguard or Fidelity losing a third of their userbase in a year.

I can't read the article, but you define "monthly active users" as a user exiting the platform i.e. pulling their money out?!

Originally, I had assumed it was "users who don't open the app/website" but expectation difference caused me to look it up:

> Robinhood defines a monthly active user as a "unique user who makes a debit card transaction, or who transitions between two different screens on a mobile device or loads a page in a web browser while logged into their account, at any point during the relevant month. A user need not satisfy these conditions on a recurring monthly basis or have a Funded Account to be included in MAU." [0]

I have a Vanguard, I haven't opened it in a month. By the above MAU definition, Vanguard lost me too.

Again, this _alone_ doesn't tell us that RH is doing poorly vs other Retail Brokers. They could be, but not enough info.

My take is - most people don't want to see their ultra red portfolio and are just not opening the app.

[0] https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/05/09/robinhood-losing-m...

> or have a Funded Account to be included in MAU

If you have a balance of $1, wouldn’t you be counted as an active user ?

It sounds to me that an active user is someone with funds or that interacted with the app/website while logged in. I’m not sure the second category made much sense to begin with (unless you wanted to inflate the numbers during a bull run)

This is a contrarian response. Funding $1 would require me to visit the website so I would have been a MAU without even funding. Conversely, funding without visiting the website requires real effort.

No metric is perfect nor stands alone. What does it mean in context to RH, FB, Apple? The value of a MAU is relative. The key is it's well defined, stable and trackable over time. Assigning value is up to diligence at that point.

Funded != funding

You may have funded the account last year and did nothing with it. My understanding is you would still count as an MAU even if you didn’t interact with RH.

Then your understanding is incorrect.

It starts out with "A user need _not_ satisfy". They're saying funding has nothing to do with MAU. The language is pretty clear - "while logged into their account, at any point during the relevant month".

If you don't like it, I get it, but you've offered nothing than "I say they're shady!"

Indeed, my understanding was incorrect. Thanks for pointing it out

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