Why does the 1% fee exist? For a long time it was a lack of alternatives. The MMM crowd includes a lot of math oriented people, computer programmers, engineers, people who work in finance, etc. Most people don't enjoy playing with numbers and %s. Most people don't enjoy reading about tax laws of Roth VS Trad, SEP VS SIMPLE, tax efficient investing, tax efficient spend down, etc. Most people without real help will buy XYZ stock because their uncle said it was good on facebook, they will ask their banker for ideas on how to pay down debt(banker says... consolidate!), or their insurance agent for investment advice(agent says... annuity with hidden 2-3% annual fees). Those representatives have a hammer they get paid to hammer with so they believe their hammer is the solution to every problem.
For those people an advisor held to a fiduciary standard, even at 1%, will probably help them avoid mistakes that would cost them significantly more than 1%.
NOW we have alternatives, but it is still a really short list. Some fee only advisors charge for a plan, some charge a smaller % like 0.5% and use low cost ETFs so all in costs stay under .7%, and Vanguard has that new offering that is only 0.3%. If you are just looking at an IRA or 401(k)[no tax considerations] then you could use a lifecycle fund, many of which cost less than 0.2%.
Note, I''m not advocating using an expensive advisor, just why they exist. I hope the model significantly changes.