Was I rude Monday when I asked a question about how BATS, the exchange company that canceled its IPO last Friday because of a glitch in its own software, helps the little guy.

I grilled Joe Ratterman, the CEO, on "Squawk on the Street," about how BATS benefits mom-and-pop investors, because I believe that high-frequency trading -- the genesis of the business of BATS -- is profoundly antithetical to individual investors' confidence in the system.

The fact that BATS, which controls more than 11% of American trading, had to cancel its own IPO because it couldn't get its own system to work, is a blow against confidence. Any system that allows its first trade to be at $16 and the next one to be at pennies is not one I want to put my life savings into.

Nor do I trust a system that causes Apple (AAPL) to drop 9% on a 100-share trade that BATS executed, something that also happened Friday. Apple is a half-a-trillion-doll​ar company, for heaven's sake.

I think one reason it occurred is that electronic trading is flawed. A big institution might understand these flaws and excuse them. But an individual investor just says, "Who the heck needs this nonsense?" It just reminds them of the horrendous flash crash, during which stocks went down huge in minutes because of another software glitch.

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What bothers me is that everyone claims to be helping the little guy. The BATS CEO came with the usual "liquidity" blather about how his company helps the little guy. He mentioned the time-honored narrowing of spreads between prices as something his company helps bring about.

First, I think the spreads between prices were going to go down anyway because of the decision by exchanges to switch to decimal trading. Second, by bidding and then pulling bids in a lightning-fast fashion, I think BATS and similar outfits like them actually suck out the liquidity.

Third, I wouldn't be so angry if the CEO simply said, "Look, we have nothing to do with helping the little guy. We are about high-frequency institutional trading, we help those traders, not small investors. We aren't about helping the mom-and-pop investors. Not at all. We are about doing what's right for a different set of clients irrespective of the little guy."

That's fine. I get that.

Finally, the success of BATS (the company) and the failure of BATS (the trading firm) to do its IPO and trade Apple correctly are two sides of the same bad-news coin. They symbolize how the Securities and Exchange Commission has lost control of the trading process. The government has allowed regular investors to be sacrificed upon the altar of speed that is unnecessary for all but these high-frequency traders. The government doesn't even seem to care that individual investors have lost faith in the markets.

Meanwhile, investors continue to leave stocks as an asset class precisely because of a lack of confidence that the stock market even works, let alone works for them.

Our government needs to start thinking about leveling the playing field between individuals and fast-trading institutions. It needs to rethink its approach to approving every innovation regardless of the impact on individual investors. It needs to accept the mandate of helping the small guy more. Without that mandate, the moms and pops are at the mercy of the BATSes of the world.

Why don't they see that? Why does that elude them? Beats the heck out of me.

Jim Cramer is a co-founder of TheStreet and contributes daily market commentary to the financial news network's sites. Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, is long AAPL.