Capital gains taxes burden stock picking more than they burden long-term-buy-and-hold indexing. Does your comparison of these methods consider that matter? Now, of course, stock researchers and pickers and traders do a great service to index fund investors by updating market values. This is a service that indexers do not pay for. I'm fine with that since nothing forces anyone to incur those expenses. It would destroy market efficiency if everyone declined to pay for research and active management. I see no risk if the indexing trend going to far. There will always be people who think they can beat the market, or identify managers who will beat the market for them net of expenses. Simply matching market returns gives them nothing to brag about, though indexing has supported me in retirement for 28 years. Further, each active manager has a legal and moral responsibility to say that past results are no guarantee of future results. Ain't it the truth.