I don't think I understand your post. You understand what a mutual fund is, right? And ETFs? The minimum entry for the Vanguard S&P fund (and many of their others) is $3,000. And the expenses are minimal.
Yes, as I said. But, my post was talking about the people spending $5 or $10 a week (or less) on Lottery tickets being told how [negative verb] to convert those funds to investments and the wonderful returns they could get. My post was addressing the barriers of entry to these would be investors. In your example of saving the mentioned $5-10 per week would be saving for close to 10 (or 5) years in a passbook savings account, a net loss when accounting for inflation at the time.
If you can't save $3,000, the buy-ins for the "roboadvisors" are less. Betterment has no minimum. Wealthfront's minimum is $500. And there are others. Your choice is certainly not the lottery or nothing.
Again, thanks for restating my point. And, as I said, 35 years ago was a different matter. At the time, I could not find anything under a $500 buy in (and no small additions, usually 1/2 the buy in, BTW) that performed better than inflation, or even better than the passbook.
When I finally got to the point that I could save some cash, sending the money via cashiers check (kaching!) mailed registered (kaching!) to a fund on the other side of the country. The costs of getting the money to the fund ate up any profit I would get for a while.
And, of course, liquidity was a huge issue. My money would be unavailable to me in the event of an emergency. Sure, today it would be couple clicks away, then? Mail a request, get the money in the mail, promised within 6 weeks once got it. Again, registered mail (kaching!) and if you want to rush it, you can pay (Kaching!). No/low entry funds required a fee for withdrawal (kaching!). That would be terrible planning in my opinion.