Consider latency arbitrage. Let's say the lowest latency between NY and Chicago is 22.6ms and a trading firm gets it down to 22.5ms with a huge investment: big benefit to society right?
The reward for that investment is the same as the reward for the next guy who gets it down to 22.45ms, despite the first guy saving 0.1ms on the state of the art and the second guy only saving 0.05ms. Surely 0.05ms is worth a lot less than 0.1ms to society, and it shows this whole thing is almost totally detached from any value to society.
It's just lowest number wins and the industry will consume any number of resources (running CPUs in spinlock loops instead of more efficient ones, having human labor climb microwave towers at some risk of life) up to the reward amount to claim it, regardless of any marginal value to society of the improvement.
The reward for that investment is the same as the reward for the next guy who gets it down to 22.45ms, despite the first guy saving 0.1ms on the state of the art and the second guy only saving 0.05ms. Surely 0.05ms is worth a lot less than 0.1ms to society, and it shows this whole thing is almost totally detached from any value to society.
It's just lowest number wins and the industry will consume any number of resources (running CPUs in spinlock loops instead of more efficient ones, having human labor climb microwave towers at some risk of life) up to the reward amount to claim it, regardless of any marginal value to society of the improvement.