What NYSE was doing seems to have increased frothiness of the markets. Your median individual investor might not pay a direct price for this, but it certainly could increase costs in subtle ways. Or simply make the market more frothy in the macro view as well as the micro (nano?) view.

Further, some whales (pension funds) might get hurt and that hurts your median citizen. Many hedge funds seem to have a strategy of whale-hunting. Thus dark pools and all that.