The bursts of confetti that shower screens of Robinhood investors when they make their first trade – and serve as the punchline for critics who say the popular app treats investing like a game – are going away.
Starting this week, Robinhood will begin retiring the confetti, which was meant to celebrate customers hitting milestones like making their first deposit or enabling new features, such as upgrading to its paid Gold-level membership. The last pops will go off next week, to be replaced with a suite of animations that are decidedly measured in pace, with nary a flake within them.
“They’re meant to be moments of pause, moments of understanding,” said Rich Bessel, head of design at Robinhood.
Robinhood’s popularity has exploded since it launched in 2013. Its commission-free trades and easy-to-use app have drawn in so many first-time investors and helped it grow so fast that the company is preparing to sell its own stock for the first time in an initial public offering.
The confetti animations have been around since 2016, and critics say it’s one of a number of techniques Robinhood uses to lure unsophisticated investors and keep them engaged with the app, where they may be making too many trades that are too risky for them. Massachusetts regulators last year cited the confetti in particular as part of a complaint they filed against Robinhood, alleging that it targets and manipulates inexperienced investors.