Are you trying to imply that we don't care about our clients at IB or about their businesses? If so, you couldn't be further from the truth. In any event, at least from the FINRA reports for Permac Securities I can tell at least one firm they route through will get the best option pricing and execution in the business.
TWS is a special case: not open source, but free nevertheless, if we accept that IB's commissions are low enough to not cover for developing a trading platform. Anyway, I'm perfectly willing to use TWS as I normally do, and submit clear, detailed bug reports whenever I encounter one, as well as common-sense feature suggestions. Just please take me seriously and respect the work I put in for free by creating screencasts and reporting the bugs. In other words, when I send a bug, don't reply "Let me see if there's a good reason TWS does that". I know what I'm talking about, and a reply that encourages me to do more free testing work would be instead "Let me see if I can reproduce that bug". Don't assume the user is wrong. Assume the software has a bug. It's just more respectful that way, and saner if you're dealing with a user who's an experienced QA engineer.
As I stated, customers such as you are part of the problem. I bought a certain software package earlier that I won't mention by name and submitted detailed bug reports. They then invited me to be one of the few to participate in the beta test for the next version of the software. I declined of course. A good software enginer who can write tests probably costs at least $80 an hour in salary and benefits alone. So every hour I would spend beta testing is $80 I'm saving the company, which to me is slavery. Also, can you put that you worked as a Beta tester on your resume? It is a total waste of time. Anyone who pays for software and then donates $80 an hour to the software company they which sold them bad software is not doing consumers any favors.
It could be argued that: As you said, "anyone who pays for the software [...]". TWS is free. If I beta-test a piece of software and they fix an issue I care about enough to report, then I benefit directly from the fix. I won't bother testing aspects I don't care about, since I beta test for free. Consumers who care about that issue also benefit (see this thread for example, where I reported the problem to David from IB, and it got fixed within a week). The price of the software would be higher if the company had to hire QA engineers, so consumers do benefit from my free beta testing Does this practice "train" companies to use users for free beta training? Possibly. But then again, users can be much better at testing a software in real-life scenarios than engineers who have to devise synthetic tests, while they themselves aren't users of the software.
IB charts, while slow (by milliseconds) and rife with other problems, are more accurate than Quotetracker, as an example. Sometimes QT bar highs/lows don't match IB's and IB is the correct one as verified by actual fills in my own account. Also they never freeze in chaotic markets, as I've heard happens in Tradestation, for one. Lastly, sometimes the simplicity of certain functions in IB charts works better (for me) than more sophisticated platforms. Annotating is one example - simple right click and select from dropdown menu ... one fixed size, preselected ... all good. QT by contrast is a pain in the ass; you first have to switch the main cursor tool, then once created any annotation remains flexible in size, which is annoying when you're just trying to move it and you grab it wrong so that it stretches/shrinks instead. Also no "undo" in QT, that I know of ... very frustrating at times. But I still say IB just needs to fix the bugs then leave the damn platform alone. I've never experienced even a fraction of the degree of changes and bugginess with any of the other platforms I've used, free or not.
Lol, I seriously doubt the software you speak of is "free". They might pay for it in other ways like commissions and fees. As I was told at a much younger age, "nothing is for free". It is also dubious to say consumers benefit by accepting poor software, in general, that they have to spend hours debugging. Those hours would be more productive using the software for the purpose it was purchased for. Also, don't discount the time consumers have to spend rewriting and updating their work to match the constantly changing software. I know first hand how much time is wasted having to redo work when the defective software changes.
There are a lot of brokers out there that basically say "F-U"! Not with words of course, but they make sure you get the idea... Some are really good, and others are "F-U". Which one is yours?
To the OP... every issue, every time. I figure it is about 20% user error, 80% software/broker error at this point, but overall they have done very well. I use the on line chat system and it seems to be the best fit for the problems I have encountered.
I hate to defend TWS, since I don't offer it to my clients directly. But, there is no better free platform that enables you to trade almost everything from one screen and from one broker. There are, in my clients opinion, better ways to chart, better equity platforms, better option platform, etc. Most platforms are designed to be used for a particular use, not to do everything. Because almost every trader I talk to has a focus, we offer professional platform that are directed at a perticular use. Since we don't build the platform ourselves, and the exchanges all charge us fees, we have to pass the cost to our clients. Again, I hate to defend TWS, but it is excellent for those that need to do everything, even if there are issues from time to time. Bob Rmorse@victorsecurites.com
I actually like TWS overall, and find it's easier and saner to use than quite a few other trading platforms. I just wish IB really paid attention to what their customers wanted. For example, why don't they seem to pay attention to their own Feature Poll?