Why are the other people creating value, while HFT traders do not? Both types of players extract value from the market, while improving market efficiency.
HFT definitely has high entry costs (10's of millions of dollars), and firms that aren't serious about HFT can't participate. Note that HFT only makes 2 billion a year, so they aren't actually missing out on that much. HFT just isn't a very big space, compared to long term investing, and doesn't represent very much movement of capital. (The wealthy don't really invest in HFT, since HFT firms generally don't accept outside capital, or need any substantial amount of capital to operate)
HFT definitely has high entry costs (10's of millions of dollars), and firms that aren't serious about HFT can't participate. Note that HFT only makes 2 billion a year, so they aren't actually missing out on that much. HFT just isn't a very big space, compared to long term investing, and doesn't represent very much movement of capital. (The wealthy don't really invest in HFT, since HFT firms generally don't accept outside capital, or need any substantial amount of capital to operate)