I think your metaphor is kinda off. Don't think of it like a stream, where some of the water can be separated off and filtered. Think of it like a road system

I think your metaphor is kinda off. Don't think of it like a stream, where some of the water can be separated off and filtered. Think of it like a road system. All the roads between Netflix Town and Comcast City have to go through Cogentville, and the roads are PACKED. Traffic is crawling, really slow. This deal is like opening a new six-Lane highway, direct from Netflix to Comcast, that allows everyone to travel really fast and avoids all the gridlock. I don't think there was filtering before. I think Comcast just let the traffic get really bad, and was stalling issuing permits for the new bypass.