Quote from Rod Shaft:
It seems to me like what is unfair is not algorithmic trading itself (after all, anyone can learn to program and come up with a strategy), but the fact that some are able to execute trades with less latency than the public could ever hope to achieve. The quality of the algorithm should be the edge, not the quality and location of the hardware.
Just brainstorming here, but perhaps the exchange itself should host all HFT collocation, and assign orders (or cancellations of orders) in a random sequence to all simultaneous requests (for example, on a change in price data). This way the public could write algorithms and expect identical latency to GS and others. Thoughts?