It does hurt people in some way. It increases the amount of data we need to handle. More storage space and more processing required.
And you've been a bit disingenuous in your article - there is a theory behind the "2.???" part. The theory is that slower participants are overwhelmed by the quote traffic and end up lagging, and are then taken advantage of. I don't personally believe it, and I'm sure 99% of these things are just feedback loops, but it is theoretically possible. The faster exchanges are cycling in say 20-30 micros these days, so any participant who can't match that rate will easily fall behind. Who knows, weaker participants may still be taking 1-2 millis to handle an update. So just before some known vol event, say an economic figure, you flood the exchange and lag the other participants by say 50 millis, then pick them off after the new information arrives.