[jandrese]

Those were rhetorical questions. They were meant to show how silly the concept of "offering liquidity" is as a service. Nobody asked for it, but they can't opt out without doing crazy workarounds like delaying orders to different market to avoid giving away their trade information to front runners.

[kasey_junk]

In my previous example if the highest sell price is $9.99 and you offer to buy at 9.98 you are “offering liquidity”.

It’s not a service that’s on offer it’s a fundamental market behavior that any participant can engage in.

[jandrese]

Right, which is what I was talking about in the original post.

You don't need ultra-low latency to put in that $9.98 order to keep the market moving. If you were serious about providing liquidity you'd have tons of bids and offers open all the time. You would be holding tons of stock at the end of the day by the nature of the business.

HFT firms tell you that they are making life easier for traditional investors by providing liquidity, but that doesn't make much sense given how they operate.

[kasey_junk]

My entire point is you are not accurately describing how they operate.