While I applaud them for reducing fees, I don't think key problem facing retail investors in America is $7-$10 trading commissions from brokerages. If you think that a $7-$10 trade commission is significant barrier to investing, you are not thinking about investing correctly.

The key problem I see with the investing world is that 1) most Americans lack a basic understanding of how financial instruments works 2) the media & investing culture encourages a speculative investing mindset that makes most people act like gamblers rather than rational thinkers 3) the incentives are misaligned - financial institutions are not incentivized or built to encourage people to invest smartly.

None of these problems are solved from zero trading commission structure. To be honest, this seems like a feature that day & algorithmic traders would care about rather than a normal investor. You could even argue that zero commission trades will exacerbate the issue by pushing the investing mindset to be even more short term focused; this mindset is what causes most investors to lose performance.

This seems more like a clever PR angle for Robinhood ("we are helping real Americans") rather than something impactful. I doubt their aim & monetization strategy is geared towards the everyday investor.