Its a bit of a joke. Its a network thing, not a finance thing. What it does is adds a delay and more importantly, a bit more random delay to the time it takes the order to reach the exchanges server. Once you add in the non-determinism, HFT basically falls apart because you can't take your truckload of cash and buy yourself a place in a datacenter that's 2ms closer to the exchange and front-run everyone.
It would be a wonderful thing to see all of those millions these guys have "invested" shaving a millisecond or two off their transaction times laid waste by a single command.
It would be a wonderful thing to see all of those millions these guys have "invested" shaving a millisecond or two off their transaction times laid waste by a single command.