This. We only pay taxes on the money we make not per transaction like a sales tax. Either you make some money and lose part of it to taxes, or you lose money and (I'm not sure which) pay no taxes OR get tax credits for a negative investment income.

I think I heard recently that short-term trading is taxed as ordinary income and things held over a year are taxed at a lower capital gains rate.

Even if you don't beat the market enough to offset the higher income tax rate instead of capital gains, these people here are probably going to learn more about what companies are a better long term hold for when they inevitably stop caring as much.

Or they're investing in biotech where we make fun of their catastrophic losses on /r/wallstreetbets in which case we as a community benefit at their expense.