It seems to me that the prop firms today are not interested in the trader being profitable, but are more interested in selling classes to "become a profitable trader". The prop firms today are making their money in education and don't really care what happens to the student/trader afterwards.
There are real prop firms, but they do not really have much use for people who want to walk in and "be taught to trade" because the entry level roles that once existed are now by and large fully automated. There is a large expense to doing this, and by and large firms have found this model no longer works for them. Good Firms want experienced traders with a verified track record, or highly experienced technical IT/programming/research people.
I will add: Today, there is really no reason to take the "schoolboy" approach that you must be "taught to trade". There are TONS of resources out there to learn from. Lots of books exist to cull ideas from and learn about markets from. A great book by an experienced author can be a teacher. You can get very accurate real-time simulators for FREE, which is truly amazing and worth a great deal. Data and Backtesting platforms exist that would be the envy of traders 15 years ago. This is perhaps the best self-learning tool that exists. Just be aware of the one great pitfall of all this: Do not be lured into trading a strategy that is not appropriate given your position in the market. If you avoid this extremely common trap, you can learn and be successful on your own.
i was told that trading is just one of those things you have to learn by jumping in! takes a while but then you'll figure out the best way to trade for yourself! there are prop firms that provide capital and chatrooms etc, benefits to those are you dont have to play with OTC or pink sheets and can trade more expensive stocks... chatrooms to bounce ideas off other traders. end of the day, u can watch or read all day, but if you dont step onto the court, u'll never learn how to play ball.
I have been trading for almost 18 years and I just find it annoying how when I was recently shopping for a trading floor, 99% of these floors were just interested in selling classes. I never walked into these firms letting them know the full extent of my experience, due to the fact in this biz you always have to keep an open mind to learning new things. But most of these floors were less than 1/2 occupied and I think that they should be concentrating on filling their seats and less on classes.
Hey, I understand what you meant too. They got to make $ too. In the past 15 years the cost of everything went up in price, except the cost of trading went down 75%. I wish I was still paying .02 a share, and would never think twice when paying up 3/8's for a stock.