The majority of fingernail clippers work. You put them on your fingernail and do as the directions say and it trims.
True enough, but there are far fewer ways of using fingernail clippers than is so with indicators, and this reality's actually pretty significant, in context.
The majority of indicators do not work.
It depends on what you mean by "work".
You add them to your charts and do as the directions say and you don't make money.
If that's what you mean by "work", I don't disagree much with what you're saying, there.
I'd word it slightly differently (but that may be partly just me being pedantic): I'd say "If you add them to your charts and
just do as the
widespread, generally accepted directions say, you won't make money from that
alone".
This much, I'd agree, is pretty unarguable.
But I'd also want to add two other things ...
First, we already know that most things to do with trading methodology don't "work" in that sense, because that's what most aspiring traders generally do (more or less) and most aspiring traders fail (I think we can agree this much without adducing evidence of it?), so it's not really much of a criticism of indicators,
per se, to point out that they don't "make most people profitable", because nothing else does, either.
Secondly (and I'd contend this is similarly "factual" though I'm less confident that you'll agree with this point), that doesn't necessarily mean there aren't
other ways, i.e. non-standard, non-routine, non-orthodox, non-"directed" ways, of using them that might actually "work" pretty well. My colleagues say there are, and I believe them.
