There is a subset of HFT (Arbitrage) that does have a value to society, because it allows you to trade between markets without fearing that you're somehow losing out (Because the arbritage players would have swept that up).
>allows you to trade between markets without fearing that you're somehow losing out //
The corollary to that is that your trades as a mere producer are never going to be [indirectly] profitable because all potential profits from varying price have been swept up by others who're not producing goods/services but instead are only operating to extract value that would otherwise go to producers.
Arbitrage provides an important financial service to the market... Arbitrage reduces / eliminates price differences across markets. It improves market efficiency.
It's really concerning how little people itt understand about markets
What cost? The only disadvantage is to traders who were previously benefiting from price differences, which only exist at the expense of entities who are losing out due to the same differences.
