> they need to accept personal responsibility when it turns out that they didn't know as much as they thought they did.
aka, RH is between a rock and a hard place - either the clueless user suicides due to poor understanding, and causing bad PR, or they do what they're doing now.
I think RH makes things sufficiently clear. The problem is RH is just a shitty platform that is susceptible to these kinds of problems due to high volatility which forces them into a regulatory corner every once in a blue moon.
I was a user when they had that suicide situation and RH did do a better job of explaining your actual balance when you entered a somewhat complex trade that caused you to have a negative balance. Still a user, who didn't know what he was doing, entered a complex trade, saw something he didn't understand and ended his life. In response Robinhood could have:
1. Made the UI "easier" to understand (i.e. lie) for 99% of situations
2. Raise the entry requirements to ensure people knew what they were doing (Gatekeep)
They chose (and continue to choose) 1, and I don't envy them - how would ever explain all the ways a margin account can put you in trouble on a 4 inch screen? Most users only care about "instant deposits" and will never get into trouble 99% of time. It took 2 "black swan" events (IIRC, the first suicide issue was during the first COVID market crash) for these issues to come to light.
Except their UX is streamlining away things and essentially manipulating users to get higher conversion rates and engagement. As seems to be the norm among successfull apps today. Just that stakes on the user side are more immediate than with news and social media.
They brought this onto themselves by optimizing for growth over healthy and sustainable markets.
Can you explain what specifically is manipulate about robinhood's ux? Maybe is me, but I don't find the ux of robinhood significantly different than the other brokerages I use (Fidelity and Merrill Edge).
This comes from someone who's of the opinion that manipulative dark UX patterns have been normalized - I have not used the competition you speak of, I wouldn't be surprised if they are similar.
The marketing push for options by calling it "instant trading" is pretty BS too.
Is it so black & white? Is it not possible to design an interface that shows the true state but is also indicative of how things should eventually settle?
aka, RH is between a rock and a hard place - either the clueless user suicides due to poor understanding, and causing bad PR, or they do what they're doing now.