> We just need to see the problem as "who can provide liquidity and stability to a market" rather than "who has an unfair advantage"

And essentially every single analysis of THAT problem says that HFTs consume liquidity in times of instability, and "provide" liquidity in times of stability.

As such, HFT destroys the value that people actually care about.

Anyway... no point in arguing about this; the sociopathic assholes who run HFT aren't going to stop, the exchanges aren't going to fire their best customers, and the regulators are all bought and paid for. The only good news about HFT, at all, is that because it's a completely commoditized playing field, their margins tend to get compressed over time, so at least they're screwing us slightly less every year.