One can simultaneously find this whole thing pretty popcorn-worthy while hoping not too many people end up seriously screwing up their lives over it.

Indeed. Exactly this.

There is a situation where retail investors don't get utterly screwed but that is a fine edge and on either side of it, thousands of them get screwed.

Yup. And it’ll be a bunch of people that can’t afford to lose the money

I agree. The ultimate irony is that their mission is to democratize finance.

Robinhood's mission is to gamify day trading. Don't let the pretty mission statements obfuscate the truth.

Correct - Robinhood's _marketing_ was "we'll democratize finance".

Robinhood's _purpose_ was to sell order-flow information to the hedge funds. Retail investors were never the customer, always the product.

This is like a mouse complaining about the "irony" of a mousetrap abandoning its mission of cheese-distribution.

Like Facebook and Google's users, Robinhood's clients are the product. They've now learned that truth the hard way.

Seems like a game to me.

> The ultimate irony is that their mission is to demon-atize finance.

The above is what I read at first glance which seemed appropriate.

Hardly the first time in startup history, sadly.