India already also has it's own problems, it's been a few years since I looked at India but the last time I did, the ISPs had terrible neutral public peering an

India already also has it's own problems, it's been a few years since I looked at India but the last time I did, the ISPs had terrible neutral public peering and almost all peering was being done in Singapore. So if you made a connection from a user on one ISP to another, it would often travel off the sub-continent. I'd be impressed if that situation had dramatically improved but not be surprised if it hadn't. I'd disagree somewhat with your assessment as to whose generating and delivering the most traffic. The hyperscalers are definitely generating the most but also hosting providers (including tier 2 and 3 providers) are usually fronted by CDNs for bulk data transfer. Remembering that binary files, including video and audio which are mostly delivered to end customers by file, massively outweighs text traffic. There's some EU reports on the balance of traffic, which isn't perfect but paints a clearer picture. I can't find them publicly but they exist. As for ISPs wanting content generators to pay? It very much is an abuse of the ISPs position. They are double dipping. The customers pay for internet access, but the ISPs want to not only charge the consumers but also want to take a cut from the services. Ultimately this will harm consumers: * It makes it harder for online transformation to happen, for example traditional media will get a boost because online media will become more expensive to run. * Content providers and hosts will have to charge more to customers who connect in India. We already see countries where it's more expensive to host, so that plays into the business model there. The money doesn't come from some magic pot, it has to be paid by someone. * The ISPs are unlikely to be incentivised to use that money to invest in their networks, they'll treat it as earned income and then it'll boost their profitability. The same debate is happening in the EU and other countries, it's posturing and someone may be dumb enough to do it. And like the German recording rights tax that was paid on hard disks, it won't ultimately be a good story for consumers.