I think the author has misunderstood the SEC Order. The article says (emphasis added):
> The SEC identified $34 million that Robinhood customers lost by not receiving best execution, which is much less than the money they saved by forgoing trading commissions.
But paragraph 42 of the Order[1] says (emphasis added):
> ... certain Robinhood orders lost a total of approximately $34.1 million in price improvement compared to the price improvement they would have received had they been placed at competing retail broker-dealers, even after netting the approximately $5 per-order commission costs those broker-dealers were charging at the time.
> The SEC identified $34 million that Robinhood customers lost by not receiving best execution, which is much less than the money they saved by forgoing trading commissions.
But paragraph 42 of the Order[1] says (emphasis added):
> ... certain Robinhood orders lost a total of approximately $34.1 million in price improvement compared to the price improvement they would have received had they been placed at competing retail broker-dealers, even after netting the approximately $5 per-order commission costs those broker-dealers were charging at the time.
[1]https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2020/33-10906.pdf