Ok, now let's take that thought experiment and make it closer to the real world:
Imagine that Avis is buying cars in bulk and getting better deals as a result, and then imagine that the knock-on effect of them doing that is that you get better deals on cars because of how they change the way the car market works.
Car dealerships are, for obvious reasons, really fucking upset about this. And they are noisy and well-funded. Normal people start getting angry at the giant rental car companies and the unfair advantage they get, unaware of the fact that without those companies, they'd be getting screwed even worse by the dealerships.
That's what HFT does to normal investors. You don't have to take my word for it; the Chief Investment Officer at Vanguard, among many other people, has said exactly this.
Imagine that Avis is buying cars in bulk and getting better deals as a result, and then imagine that the knock-on effect of them doing that is that you get better deals on cars because of how they change the way the car market works.
Car dealerships are, for obvious reasons, really fucking upset about this. And they are noisy and well-funded. Normal people start getting angry at the giant rental car companies and the unfair advantage they get, unaware of the fact that without those companies, they'd be getting screwed even worse by the dealerships.
That's what HFT does to normal investors. You don't have to take my word for it; the Chief Investment Officer at Vanguard, among many other people, has said exactly this.