Is that revenue from ad impressions? They did $1.3bn in their last public quarter, and in that earnings report they lump it in with homepage and sports in the one place it's mentioned, so I don't think it's particularly important (to them).
Also, what does it do that retail brokers don't offer better and for free now? News aggregation?
> Also, what does it do that retail brokers don't offer better and for free now? News aggregation?
A lot of it is about presentation.
Brokers may "have" the same info as Yahoo Finance or finviz, but if you have to dig through ten pages to get to it and or their charts look like a 1990s website, there's still room.
A lot of more serious investors find themselves paying out of pocket for trading tools like stockcharts/tradingview/finviz/Y!F Plus, because these tools help them be more productive because actual thought and care has gone into the products.
But this is the reason why Bloomberg Terminals are worth $20K/year/seat. On paper, you can find a lot of the same info online for free, but the interface itself is a huge value-add.
Yahoo Finance Premium is a low rent version of Bloomberg Terminal. For $35/month you can get close to Bloomberg level data. Bloomberg Terminal costs $1,900 per month.
Also, what does it do that retail brokers don't offer better and for free now? News aggregation?