&gt; HFT is fiercely competitive<p>For the incredibly small minority of people who can engage in it, and who enjoy special rules, maybe. For the majority of the people who&#x27;s money is actually extracted by this system, it&#x27;s an exclusive club.<p>&gt; Without HFT, bid offers would be wider. Fact.<p>The majority of people who just want to save for retirement would prefer wider bid offers instead of having such a large chunk of money extracted from their future bank accounts. Fact.<p>The other reason why HFT is non-competitive is that you cannot go and start a market with your own rules without being deeply in bed with the government and the financial status quo. HFT is forced down our throats by a system that calls itself capitalistic but thrives on enjoying custom-made loopholes in heavily-regulated statism.