A long time ago, there was a startup called Digital Island. They were a small(er) exchange (or is the term "market maker"?), but they handled about 20% of NASDA

A long time ago, there was a startup called Digital Island. They were a small(er) exchange (or is the term "market maker"?), but they handled about 20% of NASDAQ's daily volume. The good thing was, they would let you buy their data post-facto (not realtime). At the end of the day, you could download their entire set of completed orders for the day. The cost was minimal ($30/month, IIRC). But they were bought out by NASDAQ, and NASDAQ shut down this data-sharing program. Which, to me, reinforces the point that the powers-that-be don't want to lose control of the information; it's a pay-to-play system, and information is one of the privileges to paying the big bucks. One would assume that being a heavily regulated system, it would be expected that all orders would be open to the public (at least the historical ones), to ensure transparency. But one would be mistaken.....