As usual Ben, I'll argue this point... :)

If over the past 10 years, 82.5% of actively managed funds in the US underperformed the S&P 500 when accounting for investment fees, that means 17.5% of active funds outperformed the index.

This means that if you can figure out a way to pick the 1 in 6 out-performing funds, you can leave index investors in your financial rear-view mirror.

That's what I've done for almost 2 decades now, with a personal rate of return that's a bit more than 1%/year better than the index (see https://medium.com/financial-strategy/a-simple-investing-method-that-beat-the-s-p-500-for-17-years-and-counting-ed1c99803370).

As I've written in another piece (https://medium.com/alpha-beta-blog/warren-buffet-recommends-index-investing-really-best-for-your-money-a52820c20f59), over the past 15 years, multiple active T Rowe Price funds handily outperformed a slew of Vanguard's low-cost index funds.

As the old saying goes, you can drown in a pool that's only 1" deep on average. You just need to find the deep part... :)