I believe no fund are too small for someone to lose.
These are not easy questions, and of course, no one should want to either be reckless, lazy and/or failing to think through situations, but people can also get reckt or to miss out on a variety of opportunities, or paying too much in fees, or to be spending too much time on certain non-productive activities and worries by being overly cautious and unwilling to take various risks.
sometimes there are advantages towards having some money on exchanges and the whole system of bitcoin (and sure shitcoins too) come from price discovery and liquidation avenues being established on exchanges... so many guys here are lecturing about not keeping value on exchanges as if it were the ONLY thing going on, and sure on an individual level, you may well be motivated to maximize your own protections, but you also need to balance how much you might consider to be too much to be willing to lose and not putting yourself in a position that you are overly jittery.
And yeah, $500 has a different feeling to it for depending on your savings (investment portfolio) stash and your income so is different for:
1) someone who does not have any other savings and has an income that ONLY allows for $10 - $30 savings per week,
2) someone who does not have any other savings and has an income that allows for $400 - $800 savings per week,
3) someone who has $10k in savings, and has an income that ONLY allows for $10 - $30 savings per week,
4) someone who has $10k in savings, and has an income that allows for $400 - $800 savings per week,
5) someone who has $100k in savings, and has an income that ONLY allows for $10 - $30 savings per week,
6) someone who has $100k in savings, and has an income that allows for $400 - $800 savings per week,
7) someone who has more than $1 million in savings, and has an income that ONLY allows for $10 - $30 savings per week,
8 ) someone who has more than $1 million in savings, and has an income that allows for $400 - $800 savings per week,
Do I need to go on with more examples to make my point? Your feelings about the potential loss of $500 is going to feel different depending on the size of your savings and also the size of your discretionary income
And sometimes money is being made (or options are increasing) by using those third-party services, not that I am suggesting that there is a need to trade BTC or to get involved in shitcoins, but just that there could be some advantages by having money on third parties, especially if someone has a cushion and still might be considering ways in which s/he is not thinking in terms of all or nothing in regards to whether to use a 3rd party service but instead considering how much exposure do they consider to be acceptable in comparisons to a variety of other goals that they might have that might even place some value in having money (value) in various places... and I am not even referring to getting involved in shitcoins.. but there could even be some value to keep money in places that are known not to make money (such as keeping some money in fiat) and even to lose money, merely because it is good to have options of ways to be able to spend that money... or even to be able to invest if some opportunities were to potentially come.