Rarely is there a clear rationale for who a middleman should extract their fee from. In practice, it comes down to who is willing to pay to be part of the trans

Rarely is there a clear rationale for who a middleman should extract their fee from. In practice, it comes down to who is willing to pay to be part of the transaction. Comcast customers pay for internet access, but I doubt that agreement specifies anything about network topology. If L3 wants a special connection, and it's worth more to them than it is to Comcast, then I don't see what's wrong, in principle, with charging for it. Regardless, the net neutrality thing certainly seems bogus. On the other hand, if L3 didn't go on the offensive with PR, they probably would have taken a larger share of the blame from users than they deserve.