If front running happens at all (and by strict definitions, it really doesn't), it certainly isn't happening to Robinhood customers (or the custoemrs of any other discount brokerage).
For stocks? Absolutely not. You get the National Best Bid or Offer (NBBO), as required by law, ie, the best spread available on the public stock markets.
> at least in Crypto land
Well, maybe there's your mistake.
> To think that HFT firms are using this data to only front run orders
They're not using it to front run orders. Not only is that illegal, but it's also in this case impossible by definition. You front run an order that might move the market by trading in advance of it, but in this case the internalisers are paying for retail order flow because it won't move the market. That's the only reason it has value to them. And because it won't move the market, you (obviously) can't get out in front of that market movement.
I'd suggest doing a bit more research.
What Robin Hood does is sell the orders to high frequency traders, which then front run these orders and can great a small incremental disparity per trade. It's not even .01 per trade.
However, the benefit is that every trade is done at a profit to the high frequency trader, because they are simply fulfilling an order, and not holding the stock.
And to the regular small investor, the price movement is inperceptible.
The actual work of high frequency traders was discovered by large institutions because their order volumes were much higher and because they were much more price sensitive, and they saw a much larger swing in their price from which they were closing transactions.
This was all detailed in Michael Lewis' book "Flash Boys". So if you liked "The Big Short", this one is a must read as well. So in this case they are giving from the poor to the rich, but it's really a small imperceptible amount and because of the vagueness of what's happening most retail investors are completely unaware nor that much interested in what's happening here.
You are getting a zero commission trade, which may cost you $7 somewhere else, do you really care if someone tacks on a $0.50 cent charge? You are still up $6.50.