
Yea, there's fees. Over the life of my 401(k), there'll be a good amount of fees.
Last year, though, I got
$5206.93 in employer matching money, and payed
$31.54 in fees. You're telling me that's an L? Like, with a straight face, I want you to tell me that's an L.
It'll be a long-ass time before those fees start to overtake the employer matching portion, if ever. In the meantime, I get to use that employer matching to buy more shares, which in turn will earn interest, and make me more money over a very long time.
I wouldn't expect a company to manage my retirement for free, and if they told me they would, I wouldn't trust them.
Edit: To put it another way, my 401(k) had
$57,603.12 in it at the start of 2012. Today (a little more than a year later) it has
$91,342.87. The fees you speak of, were again
$31.54. Explain to me in detail, the L I'm taking here, because I made more than that from the first dividend payout from just ONE of my investments.