How Robinhood Is Selling Your Data?

The Robinhood app has faced criticism after the GameStop Short Squeeze back in January, 2021. But how does Robinhood work? Who is Robinhood’s real audience that benefits from the app itself?

Answer? It’s not the millennials it targets as users.

The Robinhood origin story like most any other startup. Two guys met at Stanford and said, “Oh, here’s something we could do. Let’s build an app for capitalism wearing Millennials and they can invest for free!”

Let’s “democratize” capitalistic access.

A lot of Millennials got behind them, tried their app, and liked it for the most part. There was even a long waitlist at one point. Some people, though, noticed that while there’s now commission on Robinhood, you typically pay a little bit more when buying on it. The difference can be tiny, maybe a cent or two, but it turns out that the secret Robinhood left out when it preached its whole “free market” stance to people.

It doesn't need your commission. Instead it sells the information of what you’re about to do to the very mega players that Robinhood vowed to fight against for you. This is so these players could do what you’re about to do before you even do it, and make a buck or two.

Or 10 million.

It’s called front running. Therefore the Millennials aren’t Robinhood’s users or customers. The Millennials are just the product.

What do you think? Do you use Robinhood? Let us know in the comments below!

#Millennials #StartUp #JuliaSun