I wouldn't call them ultra or uber wealthy. They probably have a few million I'm sure. But I doubt that's why many in their generation use these brokers. They didn't really come up in the internet generation. My father knows computers, don't get me wrong, even more so than myself to the tenth power. He was a software engineer his entire life. However, his use of the web correlated with his profession. My mom worked for a very large brokerage and had a traders licence. As I stated, my father didn't even know you could make your own trades via proxy through discount brokers like Etrade etc. My mom probably knew about them in her business, but would probably feel it was beneath her in working at an actual mega entity brokerage, thereby never even considering using it. Not because the were wealthy, or uber wealthy, because they aren't, but because of their mindsets. To them there was only one way to trade stocks, and that was using a brokerage firm with brokers doing the trading, because that was the only way theyd ever really known.