Public charges an optional contribution for trades

I've recently been trying to lower my Robinhood usage and try other trading platforms. Especially because I rely on the brokerage to mainly allow me to trade while most of the analysis I do is off the apps and in other places.

So this naturally led me to sign up for both Webull and Public. Webull has so many problems within its UI that could be a post on its own. I'll focus on a dark pattern I noticed within Public's app today. They charge an "optional contribution" which they justify by saying they would rather let the customer support them instead of relying on market makers paying. This concept is generally known as "payment for order flow" (PFOF). This is how Robinhood, E-Trade, Webull, and many others make money while allowing free trading on their platform. Public decided to abandon PFOF and now requests a tip on their orders.

This is new to me. I'm not a huge fan of paying a hefty fee for trading. I noticed this b/c I sold the free $20 stock they give you and in my case, the stock sold for $19.89 but I only got $18.88 deposited. There was $1.00 taken out for a tip and $0.01 as a regulatory fee.

So, make sure to go into your settings and disable that auto-contribution.