Comcast sells access to the internet to households. To provide the service of access to the internet, Comcast must connect with other networks that the stuff o

Comcast sells access to the internet to households. To provide the service of access to the internet, Comcast must connect with other networks that the stuff on the internet is connected to. This is the business they're in. That's specifically what customers are paying for when they buy internet access: Comcast gets money from customers, that money goes to connecting Comcast to the internet, then connecting Comcast to the customers' homes. Thus internet service is delivered. One of these networks they must connect to in order to sell internet access is Cogent's. Behind Cogent were hundreds of thousands of sites and services, including Netflix. These customers all pay for their internet connectivity. Cogent's being paid to connect these customers to the internet (Netflix's bandwidth bill was at least in tens of millions per year), Comcast is being paid to connect its customers to the internet, they both need to connect with an adequately sized pipe to meet their obligations to their respective customers. They're both paid handsomely for the service. Comcast was being derelict in its duty to its customers by refusing to maintain a wide enough connection between its network and Cogent's network to reliably deliver access to that part of the internet. Customers are paying for that service (unlimited access to the internet at 15+mbps), but if the part of the internet they wanted to reach was Cogent's, they couldn't get anywhere near the advertised speed, and videos sometimes buffered or downgraded bitrates at prime time. Netflix should not have had to pay to correct this, Comcast should've. The connection between Netflix and Comcast customers wasn't poor because Netflix refused to send the bits fast enough, but only because Comcast refused to accept them fast enough. That's Comcast's responsibility to address. Providing that network on their end is the business they're in. Netflix is not trying to pay for any special "fast lane" speed that other sites don't get, and its' already paid for its internet access, it's just trying to avoid going out of business as a side effect of Comcast screwing its own customers by failing to provide the service it's been paid for.