Is the Stock Market Designed to Exploit Retail Investors? Let’s Talk About Stop-Loss Triggers During Daily Volatility.

I’ve been observing something that feels… off. And the more I look at it, the more it seems like the entire trading system is tilted against regular investors.
Every day the market has an opening price and a closing price. That’s what the media reports:

“SPY closed up today.”
“NASDAQ finished green.”

Great. But here’s the problem:

During the trading session, prices swing like crazy, massive volatility, algo-driven moves, liquidity traps, stop hunts… you name it. Meanwhile, retail investors who use stop-losses can get knocked out of their positions right in the middle of the volatility, even if by the end of the day the market finishes up.
So you can literally buy a strong stock, get stopped out by intraday manipulation/noise/algos/liquidity gaps… only for the stock to recover and close green. You lose, institutions win.

Why does the system even function like this?

Wouldn’t a fairer system be:
Stop-losses only trigger at the closing price, when all investors, retail and institutional are on the same playing field?

Instead of punishing people during random intraday spikes created by big money?

Right now it feels like the rules are set up to sweep retail investors out of positions, harvest liquidity and then let the market rally without them.
Am I missing something here, or is the trading system intentionally structured to exploit volatility against retail?
Curious to hear your thoughts especially from people who’ve been hit by stop-loss hunting or intraday fakeouts.