They're certainly one of the two best for-profit brokerages (the other being Fidelity). Vanguard is inherently customer-focused, unlike the for-profits. Schwab and Fidelity are great today, but a future CEO/board could come in and decide to squeeze customers, and then you're somewhat stuck. Moving funds is difficult and if ERs are bumped, you have to balance taking a capital gain against the ongoing ER cost.