Your 2% mutual fund fees are paying for financial house employees surrounding the exchange.
Do you honestly think:
(1) That most mutual fund employees live in Manhattan?
(2) That mutual fund employees need to live near an exchange floor, or even ever go to visit one?
(3) That the exchanges in Manhattan are were the real trading gets done?
(1) In reality, the largest mutual funds in America are generally located far from Manhattan: Vanguard is in PA, Fidelity is in Boston, iShares is in NJ, Dodge & Cox is in SF, PIMCO is in Southern California, Janus is in Denver, etc.
(2) Mutual fund employees are not specialist traders - the only reason they would ever have to set foot on the floor of an exchange is to claim some kind of charity award and ring the bell.
(3) The exchnages in Manhattan represent maybe 1% of the actual trading order flow. The biggest exchanges by volume are located in industrial areas of New Jersey.