Yes, and...? It seems worth clarifying. I am concerned that you are perceiving my comments as being fastidious or conspiratorial in attitude, that is definitely not my intention and I apologize if it sounded rude, I am just concerned with the details on "how it all went down" so-to-speak.

To address the matter of payment-for-order-flow, it's a practice that is currently banned in countries like Australia, Canada, and the UK, largely due to conflicts of interest. There is actually another way of brokering which these countries use instead - it's simply paying a fee to execute the trades, old-fashioned and usually minus the confetti. That said, market makers are often given a good chunk of direct order flow anyway, which tends to move the flow off-exchange even if they are not paying for the privilege of obtaining order flow.