So yes, it's essentially useless to the retail or wholesale investor.
Having liquidity available to take is not useless. You should re-read the article - it is a zero sum game between liquidity sellers, and a positive sum game between liquidity sellers and liquidity consumers.
At the end of the day they're levying a tax on the rest of the market...
It's not a tax. If you choose not to take liquidity you don't pay for it. If you do choose to take liquidity you pay less than you would under other systems (e.g., specialists).
If it's not a tax, then why was the RBC guy able to save millions of dollars by using software to ensure that his orders arrived simultaneously at all the exchanges? If, as related in the 60 Minutes story, institutional investors are each being charged hundreds of millions of dollars per year, how can that be seen as anything other than a tax?
Institutional computer buyers pay hundreds of dollars to Dell for every computer they purchase. Is Dell "taxing" them? Of course not - if they don't want computers they don't need to buy them. If you read the article, you'd realize the RBC guy was buying liquidity. He wants to purchase what HFTs are selling.
There is a simple obvious way for anyone to avoid paying the HFT "tax". Use ALO orders. They come with execution risk, but you don't pay the spread and the matching engine will pay you rebates. Can you tell me why anyone anywhere would choose to purchase from HFTs rather than using ALO orders?
Having liquidity available to take is not useless. You should re-read the article - it is a zero sum game between liquidity sellers, and a positive sum game between liquidity sellers and liquidity consumers.
At the end of the day they're levying a tax on the rest of the market...
It's not a tax. If you choose not to take liquidity you don't pay for it. If you do choose to take liquidity you pay less than you would under other systems (e.g., specialists).