Serious question, though. How do you distinguish between the situation you're describing, and a situation where the release of Flash Boys resulted in a lot of z

Serious question, though. How do you distinguish between the situation you're describing, and a situation where the release of Flash Boys resulted in a lot of zeitgeisty discussion about HFT, where people hashed out their differing opinions about it. I ask because I don't think that the case against HFT is airtight, or that either side is obviously right. A lot of smart people have defended HFT to some extent (including HN's favorite finance writer, Matt Levine[0]). I get the sense that there are a lot of people out there who read Flash Boys and assumed that HFTs are obviously the bad guys. I'm something of a contrarian, and pointing out the arguments in favor of HFT to those people is the kind of thing I would have done. (I don't remember a particular instance, but I probably did at one point.) In that situation, I wouldn't be surprised if some people assumed that I was a paid Wall Street shill (because obviously that's the only kind of person who would defend HFT under any circumstances, right?) So while I'm not denying that manipulation does happen, I'm worried that it will give people license to discount anyone that disagrees with their personal received wisdom as nothing more than corporate puppets. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-03-31/michael-lewis-doesn-t-like-high-frequency-traders https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-03-31/michael-l...