I understand. My point was simply that everyone has access to it if they really want it badly enough. It isn't kept from anyone willing to seek it out. Regulations aren't going to force a broker to start allowing it. If one is unwilling to move, then the best hope is that regulations ban them altogether. I just wouldn't hold my breath.
Yeah that's whats called barriers to entry. The higher, the less efficient the market will be. I mean, everyone can become a billionaire cowboy astronaut as well, if they "want it badly enough". Unfortunately that's not quite how it works... With HFT however, there's really nothing stopping brokers / banks giving their clients more transparent access. You know, except for the fact that they make huge money by keeping it all in the dark and "taking care" of the execution routing for their clients. And we're supposed to blindly trust our order to be routed in our best interest, which is rather absurd.
Barriers to entry? Join a prop firm and you get it. Some brokers have them too. That isn't much of a barrier. Point is, if you want to route an order to a specific venue, or have some of those special order types, you don't need to be HFT. You simply have to look for it. The cost is negligible if you are trying to be a trader.
And how many serious investors go via prop firms? And how many prop-firms have access to HFT-type infrastructure, all the worlds dark pools etc, let alone give you access to them, without having you bleed commission money out your ass? I'm not very familiar with the prop firm industry, but the impression I have is that many are just bucket shops. I may be wrong however. Nontheless, the whole point is that if you are a serious investor, you're dealing with a market where 50-70% of the volume is HFT, where 30% of the volume executes outside the eye of the public and where markets are extremely fractioned. Where the best investment is buying a colocated HFT to front-run the public rather than actually supplying capital. This benefits absolutely none and only serves to scare away investors. Capital markets are meant to attract capital, and having them operate as some arena for robot wars, is not the way to go about accomplishing that.
My mistake. I assumed you were a trader, not an investor. If you are occasionally buying and selling for investment purposes, you could seek out a broker that allows those things (I'm pretty sure Interactive Brokers allows routing to specific venues). However, I don't think it is necessary. If you give me a scenario (specific example) of what is happening that is a problem for you, maybe I can give you a suggestion.
Yes, IB allows routing, for a hefty cost. Their SMART routing is the cheapest option, where you have no control over where your order goes. I'm pretty sure they employ dark pools and various internalization, however you get zero access to any of these markets, of course. If you know any broker that allows their customers direct access to all the markets the broker has access to on their own screens, then please do tell me. I don't think you'll find any.