A long time ago, there was a startup called Digital Island. They were a small(er) exchange (or is the term "market maker"?), but they handled about 20% of NASDAQ's daily volume.
The good thing was, they would let you buy their data post-facto (not realtime). At the end of the day, you could download their entire set of completed orders for the day. The cost was minimal ($30/month, IIRC).
But they were bought out by NASDAQ, and NASDAQ shut down this data-sharing program. Which, to me, reinforces the point that the powers-that-be don't want to lose control of the information; it's a pay-to-play system, and information is one of the privileges to paying the big bucks.
One would assume that being a heavily regulated system, it would be expected that all orders would be open to the public (at least the historical ones), to ensure transparency. But one would be mistaken.....
They won't. To lose control of the information, the way it is _generated_ must become decentralized. While this may happen (e.g., it does in foreign exchange markets to some extent), it will not be _this_ kind of information, but something completely different.
The good thing was, they would let you buy their data post-facto (not realtime). At the end of the day, you could download their entire set of completed orders for the day. The cost was minimal ($30/month, IIRC).
But they were bought out by NASDAQ, and NASDAQ shut down this data-sharing program. Which, to me, reinforces the point that the powers-that-be don't want to lose control of the information; it's a pay-to-play system, and information is one of the privileges to paying the big bucks.
One would assume that being a heavily regulated system, it would be expected that all orders would be open to the public (at least the historical ones), to ensure transparency. But one would be mistaken.....