It's not we that know how to don't share, cause for 1 do, I suspect it's more you/everyone is incapable of listening to anyone else's advice. Although the first part is right, it's all total garbage, 99% use and 99% fail!
This thread is comical. People who do well in demo but fail with real money have psychological issues, not trading strategy issues. The notion that everybody can do well in demo is too hilarious to take seriously. The notion that only trading with real money teaches real trading is almost as hilarious. Trading is a mental activity and simulation training is always a good activity for that. Use demo or don't, your choice but it's a free tool and it strikes me as foolish to waste it. The main issue seems to be discretionary trading. If you have a mechanical system that works (i.e., a mechanical system that kicks ass in backtesting), then there's no reason not to trust the signals in demo or live. Success in the demo will validate the success in the backtesting. Then you can make money with confidence. Touchy-feely discretionary trading is a whole different kettle of fish.
Fear of losses I think? Sometimes even when you know what you are doing,you are not certain of the outcome. You take risks.
Never seen anyone use a mechanical system manaully or automatic which worked, its all touchy feelie to me.
This is not about what the OP asked anymore but nevertheless interesting. If you can define a trend you should be able to be profitable. But over 90% are never profitable. Does this mean that they cannot simply connect two dots? You can define a trend but you never know in advance where it will end or how long it will last. But i can see critical moments where the change of trend can happen. Connecting your two points will never go from the lowest low to the highest high (which is the full trend) so you can know the direction but not the entire move.
In demo environments, you don't influence the market while with real trades, you do. That's a big difference. Demo is good for learning the platform, order types and getting comfortable with systematic execution but that's about it.
Although i rarely demo trade, i dont think 1 persons 1 contract is going to have a noticeable effect on the market. Hard to get motivated to demo trade, too easy to make excuses and forget a few trades. I think I was down 3k usd at my lows, over 8 years, it sounds a lot but its about 1.5% of my income over that time, most of that in the first year, got to risk it to learn IMHO!