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> One grocery store doesn't bury another by being humanly imperceptibly faster at returning carts than the other by a microsecond

One trading strategy being faster than another does not automatically make it better. This is a common misconception.



There are many, I'm only talking about the ones that get an edge through latency arbitrage.


Sure, but at that point I would argue you metaphor is not very useful.

One convenience store would likely "bury" another if it were one block closer to its customers than the other. I wouldn't say the food store industry was "really messed up with market incentives" because of it.


A better example would be two stores were equidistant and the market structure made it make economic sense for one store to pay enormous amounts to have itself jacked up and moved one millimeter closer.

A block closer is massively human perceivable, but we're talking about stuff far below human reaction times.




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