You are painting with an extremely broad brush. Before you give up on this idea, just try this exercise: enumerate the markets and financial instruments that you could potentially trade in, and characterize the current trading environment in that market.
An ultra-HFT liquidity provider being profitable has little bearing on the potential profitability of quantitative trading on significantly larger timescales. There isn't sufficient volatility in most products for these actors to eat the lunch of actors who have alpha on trades that can hold for significant periods.
An ultra-HFT liquidity provider being profitable has little bearing on the potential profitability of quantitative trading on significantly larger timescales. There isn't sufficient volatility in most products for these actors to eat the lunch of actors who have alpha on trades that can hold for significant periods.