> Imho, all those statements are weak.
> Providing liquidity in markets is essential but markets worked long before HFT was a thing.
Correct, but the previous incarnation of liquid providers (mostly humans on stock exchange floors) was far more expensive and less efficient than HFT. This is why HFT was able to compete on price of liquidity provision (i.e., the spreads came down) and win.
These legacy firms did lose out from HFT (and are actually behind some of the anti HFT rhetoric out there) but I assume people in HFT see technological disruption as a good thing, even if bad for some incumbents.
The idea that retail traders or institutional investors are the ones that lost out from HFT lacks any evidence, AFAIK.
> FTH is just another way of going "meta" (for VC?) simply beeing faster. Until they are the market.
Your wording is a bit unclear, but if you are hinting that HFTs are operating at a loss until they capture sufficient market share, this is demonstrably false. HFTs make a lot of money (you can look up Virtu's financial statements for proof since it is a public company).
> The big question, as you too said is.
> > It is still possible that changing market structure or regulation [...] could be somehow beneficial for markets or society as a whole, but this is far from obvious.
> To me, it is rent seeking.
It would be if it was true. I admit it's a theoretical possibility, but I am yet to see a convincing argument of it.