All participants contribute to price discovery. A nanosecond order book helps with price discovery the deeper it is, regardless of whether orders clear.

> The better the computers hooked directly into the exchange get you mean.

I think you're trolling with this one. But you had an advantage typing your comment into a web browser compared to all the people who wrote theirs on paper and put it in an envelope with a stamp.

> The better the computers hooked directly into the exchange get you mean.

I need you to understand that HFT makes decisions based on human-defined parameters. It's not AI-driven. What's the difference between a human saying "these are my parameters, now CPU, go trade based off those" versus "these are my parameters, now underling, go trade based off those"

the only difference is speed, plus i suppose those underlings might suck at following their boss's directives compared to a computer