I guess an analogy I could use here is that HFT is the stock version of private equity. They do not add value to the stock market or the companies they invest in. Instead they only extract wealth from the market for themselves and their clients. This only benefits them while harming or in some cases destroying the lives of others. And this also affects most people as any pension, social security, national insurance system etc., they are part of may be part of trades on the stock market to make sure the money in these systems is not depreciating over time. In fact I'd argue companies like this target these funds specifically because they tend to have slower systems when they trade making it easier to front run them.

I won't say that you're a bad person for working for a company like this especially in today's job market. However if you work for these companies I will say you shouldn't be proud of it. You don't add anything by working for them. You just take from others.

HFT's model is to use millions of dollars to buy speed. They find out when big purchases or sales are made by other trading firms (including pensions, social Security, etc.) to front run them and make profit. They are basically using millions to gain a legal but unfair advantage over other trading firms and are a small part of why social security (or what ever you'd call that in other parts of the world) is falling apart faster than predicted.

As for being the whole point of HFT being to make money. Yes, however I'd argue this part of the economy is morally questionable at best. If you ever want to do big investments always use IEX exchange or another HFT if you don't want to risk losing several thousand dollars.

how is this market still profitable if the IEX has opened up? I thought the most vulnerable institutions to this kind of trading already moved over? Because if I understand correctly that exchange was specifically made to patch the vulnerability your company exploits.