In this case, you may be right. Generally speaking, finance can have positive effects -- even commodity speculation can be argued to positively influence long-t

In this case, you may be right. Generally speaking, finance can have positive effects -- even commodity speculation can be argued to positively influence long-term price stability. But it's hard to imagine how competing for low-latency server space makes the world a better place, except perhaps to piss people off enough that someone might eventually implement an official timing methodology that can't be gamed by sub-half-second latency advantages.