Your example of human based front-running is/was happening at a scale that's significantly smaller compared to the current fully-automated 100% of the time the market is open algorithmic front-running. If people can see this happening and see the mass skimming of billions of dollars flowing through the exchanges then yes, it absolutely is a problem for everyone. You may not care if it's fair, but there's quite a bit of people who do care - and they have a lot more money at risk than you and I. I think you're conflating buy/sell algos which react to the book or tape with HFT algos which arb via direct vs SIP feeds and basically rip people off. How are you going to "see this" and "screw with them?"
Weren't the specialists on the NYSE floor ripping people off left right and centre? How about payment for order flow? Did you ever send an order to a broker and wonder why your fills were always 0.5cent out or something? How come when the broker routes your order directly to a mm for matching? Whether it's an HFT or payment for order flow thats going to dick you out of 0.5 cent, you're still going to get dicked one way or the other. You have to get dicked. Why? Because that's someone elses edge. I wouldnt bother wasting energy on worrying about HFT. It aint going away. If you wish to waste time complaining about what you will never change, point the finger at the SEC and the RegNMS that allows this to exist. Long time since I traded stocks to be fair.
I don't get this argument. Does this mean there are no HFT algo's running in futures? Not all HFT is reliant on direct feeds versus SIP. That is just one small part of HFT.
What's not to get? My post basically implied there's more than one type of HFT. All HFT is fundamentally annoying but the direct/SIP ones are the main issue because it's straight up stealing.
Okay, misread your post then. Thought you were saying HFT is all SIP vs direct. The rest are just non-HFT algos.