See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network Tier 1 means you're so central (at least in most of the world --

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network Tier 1 means you're so central (at least in most of the world -- countries with local telco monopolies might be exceptions) that there is nobody upstream of you; everyone else is either a customer (who pays you) or a peer. None of the companies you mention are Tier 1, so they're all paying someone upstream for at least some of their traffic. Every big company has people working to reduce that cost. For example, Apple and Microsoft might decide to peer with each other in some areas, and carry each other's traffic for free rather than paying someone else to carry it. And we know Google has invested significantly in their own fiber.