There seems to be a lot of ink on this forum about short-term impressions of investing with Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, etc. I could care less. Long term is what matters to me. I first started investing about 1990 (outside my 401k). I wanted to invest with Vanguard but their minimums were too high for small investors like myself, so I chose T Rowe Price instead, as well as several boutique funds touted by M*. A few years later, tired of getting bombarded by statements and other paperwork, I consolidated all of my investments except for TRP funds with Fidelity. The funds network provided me access to a range of fund companies with greatly simplified paperwork.
What I’ve found investing with Fidelity over three decades is that it’s a well-run company with excellent customer service. Over the years, I’ve sold many of the boutique funds from other companies and reinvested the proceeds in Fidelity funds. Here is why. Fidelity has a deep bench of managers and analysts. If a fund underperforms at Fidelity, they generally fix the problem and assign new management. If a skilled manager retires, they generally replace them with little change in performance. On the few occasions when I’ve experienced problems, I spoke with a Fidelity representative and the problem was fixed immediately.
I handle all of my investments on-line, and Fidelity’s website in my opinion is excellent. I used to rely on M* for investment research, but Fidelity’s website now surpasses M* substantially in my view. I have found M*’s recommendations and star ratings to be next to useless. Using Fidelity’s on-line tools, I feel that I can make better choices about fund options than I could using M*. Fidelity also posts many articles about investing that are excellent. I have been so satisfied with Fidelity that I moved all of my TRP funds to Fidelity once they became available on their funds network. In my view, TRP’s customer service had declined and their funds network and website couldn’t compare with Fidelity. I still hold some TRP funds in my Fidelity account, but exchanged the under-performers for Fidelity funds or other funds available through their network.
Fidelity also makes it very easy to invest in CDs and Treasuries, with no additional fees and a wide range of offerings. Their money markets are competitive, and all cash is automatically invested in the MM fund of your choice. Fidelity has assigned me an advisor, who we meet with once a year at no cost. If I die before my wife, she will have someone she trusts to turn to. I don’t know if Fidelity will waive fees or minimum investment amounts for institutional classes of funds because I don’t ask for or expect special treatment not available to others.
My post is not intended to slight Schwab, Vanguard or other fund companies— but merely to describe why I am a satisfied customer after using Fidelity for about 35 years. I have no intentions of switching.

I spent years in what SS calls "non-covered" jobs. WTF is THAT? It means you did not pay in. That's junk. I've ALWAYS paid in. Finally, I was asked to come in, in person, with last 2 tax returns. My SS monthly jumped from $700+ to $1,200.00. That was pre-Medicare.
Retired early, pension started lower than it would otherwise. But it is very prudently managed. I'll get a raise of 4.5% in July along with everyone else. Active workers will be given a 4.5% bump-up in "pension credits." They do that mid-year, rather than January. Silly. But I'm glad for it.

Like almost everything else, it’s best not to generalize about pensions. My wife and I both have pensions with the state of North Carolina. It is very conservatively managed, although I’m sure it has some private equity. The pension is funded roughly half from employees paychecks and the rest from the state legislature. The state also has an optional 401k plan, but does not contribute to that except for state troopers. Unlike Social Security, the NC pension has no automatic inflation adjustments. I have been retired 7 years and my wife 9 years, and we have not received any inflation increases, although the legislature has awarded a few one-time bonuses some years. So, for those people whining about fat government pensions, that certainly isn’t true for NC. I would wager that most private workers with 401k plans have more generous retirement plans than NC government employees. The NC pension plan is essentially an annuity with no inflation adjustments. Fortunately, my wife and I both voluntarily contributed to the state 401k plan, which provides our inflation adjustment— again with no contributions from state taxpayers.

I've held a LOT of individual stocks. Name a major company (some little ones too) and I've probably held it at some point over the last 35+ years. I've also had many CEFS and many various mutual funds. Over all that time I've read a ton of articles about index funds and always said I should do that, but never did. Well,,, dang it, now I'm (almost) doing it. Going to see how the next 5 years turns out being simplified. So far it's pretty dang good and I'm wondering if I'll be kicking myself for not doing it years ago.

My wife worked 14 years for our county and upon reaching age 62 her monthly pension benefit will be $512...we're rich! And will be living a life of leisure on our super yacht!

I can't see the referenced chart, though I suspect it is a price chart and not a chart of total returns.

NO! The chart is a Morningstar Total Return graph for the past five years.
While it is obviously true that distributions dilute NAV on the day of posting, almost all high quality funds prices will revert to mean fairly quickly. PRWCX posted its last dividend on Dec 18, 2023 and NAV fell over 3.5% on the day, but price fully recovered in less than two months.

Thanks for posting. I have always thought that retired folks with pensions lived in another universe compared to the rest of us. I wonder if most pension recipients pay much attention to what is going on behind the scenes at their fund?

Me and the missus had a combined three Defined Benefit Pension plans but I guess I never thought we "lived in another universe!"
We rolled the lump sum of the biggest to an IRA, and we were able to roll about half of another to an IRA. So in force, that is, monthly pension payments, we effectively have about 1 1/2 of the original three, one private and one government.
Of those, yes, I (at minimum) annually review their Actuarial Reports. Kinda know my way around them a bit as I used to perform limited scope audits of my company's and some client's Actuarial Reports when working "in another universe!" Happy to say that in 12 years of collecting pension payments, funding of both has never been a concern, to me at least.

A lot of things don’t work as well “by committee.” Learned that the hard way some 40+ years ago when a helpful neighbor and I nearly dropped a large tree onto my home while cutting it down. We ignored simple precautions like securing it to something with a line first. Each of us assumed the other one knew what he was doing rather than giving the job the careful consideration it deserved. Suspect to some degree that applies to investing.

We have been retired 12 years with the anniversary date in June. We use what I refer to as 5-yr, Model Retirement Portfolios (MRP). We are thusly two years into our 3rd, 5-yr Model. Each has been significantly different in composition.
The FED started raising interest rates in June 2022 as we were creating our current 5-yr MRP for 06/2022-06/2027. We projected at that time that before long, CP CD interest rates would be over our 4% threshold for FI investments.
So we did two major structural changes starting around that time,
(1) split our total portfolio into two distinct portfolios and
(2) jettisoned ALL dedicated bond funds while significantly reducing bond holdings.
So currently we have a Market Portfolio (MP) and a 5-yr, CP CD Ladder Portfolio. Total port is 98 IRA/2 Txbl. We haven't paid any FIT/SIT since 2012 and don't plan to do so for about 5 more years. The two ports are similar in size, with the latter port designated as our LTC self-funding. It currently has an APY just over 5%.
The MP is about as basic and straight forward as they come:
12 OEFs with 10 Core and 2 Explore OEFs, and occasional trading of Blue Chip, individual stocks like NVDA and GOOGL.
The MP is:
Stocks/Bonds/Cash: 88/12/Nil
Domestic/Foreign: 90/10
Technology Allocation: 36
MAG 7 Allocation: 29
LC/MC/SC: 74/20/6
V/B/G: 16/34/50
The 12 OEFs are:
3 Domestic Stock Index
1 Domestic Sector
2 Domestic LCG
1 Domestic LC Value
1 Domestic SCG
1 Global LCG
1 Foreign LCG
2 Moderate Allocation (which provide our ONLY bond allocation)
2024 YTD TR of the MP is, well, um, never mind. That was not asked for by the OP and if given may very well be deemed bragging by my detractors.

>> The underlying premise, viz. that dividends increase total returns, is mistaken
I understand the arithmetic here, but when I compare the last three years of (e.g.) Apple and Barnes Group stock performance on Stockchart adjusted (div) and unadjusted (no div), the div value is higher by a few percent with each stock. The delta is due to ... what? Corporate capital gains?

I don't think the above chart is correct. M* shows for 5 years that PRWCX made 73.4% and WVENX made 58.9
I can't see the referenced chart, though I suspect it is a price chart and not a chart of total returns.
The underlying premise, viz. that dividends increase total returns, is mistaken:

PRCWX traditionally lags its peers further and further as the year goes on, then distributes a massive dividend and CG payout in December, putting it squarely back in the pre-tax Total Return lead.

The implication here is that the PRWCX's December div, or more generally any div, increases total return. However, a security's price is reduced by the amount of the div (aside from market fluctuations on the ex-day), netting zero change in total return.
If it were otherwise, one would not see gazillions of articles advising investors not to buy a div (purchase a security shortly before it goes ex-div). Here, for example, is Vanguard's admonition including a section entitled "Do the math".
https://investor.vanguard.com/investor-resources-education/taxes/buying-dividend
Here's a nice page describing how mutual fund divs work in general. It includes the paragraph:

A mutual fund’s net asset value is the total value of all securities held by the fund. All dividends and interest payments earned by the fund initially become part of the fund’s total net asset value and would, therefore, increase the fund’s daily NAV. A dividend distribution made by the fund would be removing assets from a fund’s NAV. When a dividend distribution is made, the fund’s daily NAV would be reduced by the amount of the distribution.

https://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/how-do-mutual-funds-pay-dividends

Even with quarterly dividends compounding, Wellington gets trounced by Giroux's fund. So do most, if not all other 60/40 allocation funds.
https://www.dpfaber.com/PRWCX-VWENX-chart.jpg

I don't think the above chart is correct. M* shows for 5 years that PRWCX made 73.4% and WVENX made 58.9

Schwab: I've been a customer for over 20 years. I can talk to a rep and explain exactly what I want and get an answer very quickly. Using a chat is much longer and annoying.
Using email it's longer too, it depends on who I use. My local rep is excellent.
1) One time they messed up my bond fund distributions. I called a rep and felt I didn't get the right answer. I asked to talk with the mutual fund back office. This time, I was sure I would get it cleared up and it was within 2 hours.
2) Try to get Ins shares purchase waived, your chances are low.
3) Try to get a match to other brokers on bringing money while it's not on the site.
4) There are more but you got my drift.
While Schwab and Fidelity are great and better than other brokers, other businesses' chat is even worse.
I've been a T-Mobile customer for about 25 years. I've got so many real free phones, especially when my kids were in college and somehow lost/damaged their phone and T-Mobile sent it directly to them. I got several free boosters in dead spots, and now it is less of a problem. In the last several years, I call customer service after 10 PM because I get reps from the Philippines and they give me more stuff compared to the American reps.
Penfed credit card gives you the same 2% cash back as Fidelity but Fidelity CC service is a lot worse and why I changed. Last year a rental company in the Netherlands charged a lot more than promised. They sent me the bill several days later. When I asked for a breakdown, I never got an answer. I filed a dispute with Penfed online, but it was denied within hours. I called in and found out none of the reasons matched my case, a new dispute had to be filed and followed by the rep. This time the dispute worked.
The lessons are
1) Chat is pretty good for solving trivial problems, but I hardly ever have them since you can find this stuff on the site. Try to solve real problems or get some freebies and chat is useless.
2) Ask for the moon and you will be surprised, humor helps too.

[snip]
Can't think of the last time I used my debit card to buy something in the past 30 years.
The consumer protections on them are significantly less than for credit cards....
and besides I prefer not to let retail companies have my checking account information.

I cycled through two or three high-yield checking accounts in the 2010s.
Executing 7-12 debit card transactions per month was a requirement.
As you mentioned, credit cards provide much stronger consumer protections.
Now I only use a single debit card to make infrequent ATM withdrawals from my credit union.

Been using debit cards since the mid 70's. I remember that some even dispensed coins for a little while. I don't think we had credit cards til the early 90's.

Can't think of the last time I used my debit card to buy something in the past 30 years. The consumer protections on them are significantly less than for credit cards....and besides I prefer not to let retail companies have my checking account information.

My latest cards don't even have a spot to sign.
I don't like flat cards. They tend to stick together, and if I am not careful, another card comes out with it. This doesn't happen with embossed cards. So, embossing was good after all, beyond the carbon paper that disappeared years ago.

Chat conversations are very much with a human and the service that I've gotten from them has been just fine, thank you. You talk about people as if they were your personal servants. I'd surely pity anyone unfortunate enough to have to work for someone like you.

I have spoken to many people on the phone including in my ex work thru complicated issues. I never got any complaints and I always got great reviews. Nobody, as well as I, were servants.
But, I expect someone to be a pro at handling customers and getting the right answers.
So let me repeat AGAIN, the best service is usually by talking to a human. That's my experience over many years working in IT in several businesses, including many years in financial institutions and as a customer. If it's important I demand it in writing. That saved me a lot of future problems and time of what was promised.
If you feel otherwise, you can do it your way, others can try both.
Just for the record, you made a harsh judgment of me without knowing anything about me while I never posted anything about you.

I've never used Schwab's chat, but I have had great luck with Verizon, SiriusXM, T-Mobile, Amex, and other chat-based customer representatives. The advantage is that you can keep the log if there are any disputes down the road. These chat lines are run by 'people' as well ... so if you're decent to them, they'll likely be decent/efficient to you. I don't care HOW I interact with them as long as my problem/concern is addressed promptly and in a professional manner.
ProTip: When using chat, if you think it's going to be an 'uncomfortable' conversation with likely attempts to upsell, (eg, cancelling cable TV) just type your problem (or a set of responses) out in NotePad or TextEdit first and then blow it into chat as needed based on the flow of the chat. Lots of folks don't know that browser-based chat reps often can see you typing / correcting / rephrasing things in the chat window and adjust their pitch to you on-the-fly based on if you seem undecided or waffling.
Edit: Schwab CSR got back to me on one of my enquiries, but I had to read it 3x to understand which issue they were responding to b/c the non-boilerplate part of the response read more like a technical trouble ticket, not a response to a brokerage account question.

Low Tech, I think that the other members are saying that the interest rate that you are getting today on your MM funds might not (and probably won't if you look at the past) last forever. In that case, what would your alternative plans be?

I'm a buy-and-holder, but that doesn't mean the same thing forever. Here's the key: "Conditions change."
As things are now, you could put $1M in a money fund and get over $50k a year in interest with no price fluctuation. A few years ago that wouldn't work. A few years from now that may not work either, or it could go up even more, a lot more.

+1

Chat conversations are very much with a human and the service that I've gotten from them has been just fine, thank you. You talk about people as if they were your personal servants. I'd surely pity anyone unfortunate enough to have to work for someone like you.

I have spoken to many people on the phone including in my ex work thru complicated issues. I never got any complaints and I always got great reviews. Nobody, as well as I, were servants.
But, I expect someone to be a pro at handling customers and getting the right answers.
So let me repeat AGAIN, the best service is usually by talking to a human. That's my experience over many years working in IT in several businesses, including many years in financial institutions and as a customer. If it's important I demand it in writing. That saved me a lot of future problems and time of what was promised.
If you feel otherwise, you can do it your way, others can try both.
Just for the record, you made a harsh judgment of me without knowing anything about me while I never posted anything about you.

Low Tech, I think that the other members are saying that the interest rate that you are getting today on your MM funds might not (and probably won't if you look at the past) last forever. In that case, what would your alternative plans be?

I already answered that three posts above yours. Is everybody here illiterate? And several posts above that I said: "Conditions will surely change -- but we don't know when or in which direction -- adjust as necessary."
I'm a buy-and-holder, but that doesn't mean the same thing forever. Here's the key: "Conditions change."
As things are now, you could put $1M in a money fund and get over $50k a year in interest with no price fluctuation. A few years ago that wouldn't work. A few years from now that may not work either, or it could go up even more, a lot more.