Why do 401(k) Plan Advisors get Paid Comparable to Brain Surgeons?

After doing a bit of research, I learned that brain surgery can cost anywhere between $30,000 and $150,000 and can take between 1 and 12 hours.  On average, it takes about 8 and a half hours.  So if you take the average cost of $90,000 (($30,000 + $150,000)/2), and divide this number by 8 and a half, you get $10,588 per hour.  That's not a bad day's work.As for 401(k) plan advisors, they typically earn anywhere from $1,000 to as much as $100,000 per year per plan, but the vast majority of advisors earn far closer to the lower end.  While some advisors may spend up to 20 hours a year, there are many advisors that literally don't do anything at all.  So I would estimate that on average, advisors spend about 1 hour a year and earn approximately $3,000.  Granted, a brain surgeon still likely earns more than three times the compensation of a 401k plan advisor, but given what it takes to be  brain surgeon vs. the 4 to 6 weeks of exam preparation it takes to become an advisor, this difference should be much larger.Furthermore, there are plan administrators who also earn about $3,000 per year per plan, yet they are required to spend far more than 1 hour per year of their time.  So the obvious question is:  How can financial advisors possibly continue to earn so much money while doing little if any work - and without necessarily having any expertise?The simple answer is that nobody understands or even thinks about how advisors get paid or how the industry works.  But the deeper question is:  Why don't people understand and think?  I have attempted to answer this question in an earlier post.