alt Hacker NewsThis is the free market speaking. If there was one exchange there would be ~no~ less latency arbitrage. But there are many... Which creates a competitive landscape and reduces fees for investors. The by product is you have many HFTs that come in to take advantage of mispricings, even if they are on sub millisecond scales. It doesn't harm the company or the investor. Its quite the opposite... Investors benefit from competition amongst exchanges and HFTs.
In addition you have redundancy in the markets system. Exchanges are important for national security... Having everything centralized would risk people's retirements, savings, and more
One other aspect of HFT that is good for the general investor is that HFT injects liquidity, making it easier for a general investor to liquidate their position, which is a desirable thing for human traders. HFT does not magically make human investors engage in more or less speculative behavior.
HFT is an easy thing to attack, but I've never encountered a lucid argument for why it's bad. "It's not fair that I'm not as fast" isn't really a reason unless you explain why removing liquidity (i.e., making it harder for you to find a buyer at your price point), paired with you moving up the "trading swiftness" rankings, is preferable.