[kortilla]

This is incorrect. Youtube does not in network content caching. That’s pretty unique to Netflix.

Youtube meets you at exchange points and if you’re an ISP anywhere that isn’t a major city, there isn’t an exchange point there.

Take a place like Boise and a municipal fiber provider there. They aren’t big enough for Netflix to offer an OCA and there isn’t an exchange in Boise with good content provider density on the fabric. So that provider needs to pay for transit or a private lease to the nearest big exchange (SEA, PDX, barely SLC) where it can get connectivity.

Your mental model is completely wrong for ISPs that aren’t serving the same city as one of the <10 major exchanges in the US.