New technologies and business models have made investing accessible. Anyone with a smartphone, for instance, can use Robinhood. Robinhood also popularized zero-fee trading, which forced the hands of brokerages like E*Trade and Charles Schwab. Commission-free trading is now the norm.

Embedded financial products open up entirely new revenue streams to productivity software companies that were previously only accessible by financial institutions. Fintech APIs (like payments from Stripe) allow companies to monetize not with expensive subscriptions but through financial instruments that were previously the purview of banks.