For example Taaffeite Capital Management (who gained some publicity for good returns on Brexit) are a < $10mm fund who use IB[1].
Sure, bigger funds have better market access, and it will always be impossible to implement a high frequency trading approach. But these platforms are about as good as a small player can get.
[1] http://www.afr.com/personal-finance/shares/artificial-intell...
I think this goes directly to the "if you use these platforms you are a fool" comment. It seems to me that some people who aren't fools use the platforms, and some who are, don't.
Also, this is HN. Pretty sure there is more than one MIT PhD reading this, and I know there is more than one doing original AI research. Bring this comment to mind: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/28911860225 (exact comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079)
"if you use these platforms you are a fool"
I said if you use these platforms _and don't have a reason to think you've got an advantage_ you shouldn't be doing so.
Lun and his peers are an exception to this. If you want to make a second argument and say he shouldn't be trading go ahead (and I'll try to back you up), but my original point was about the 99.9% who aren't Lun and are clearly just fish.