[cortesoft]

They could only cut out the middle man if they built their own global network; they don't have any fiber running to Europe or Asia or elsewhere. If there were no middle man, Comcast customers could only reach other Comcast customers.

[exelius]

But they are cutting out the middleman with respect to large traffic sources. Netflix won't be the only one to pay for an interconnect; AWS, Google and Facebook will likely follow suit shortly. Take that business away from the transit providers and it hurts.

[cortesoft]

Someone is still going to have to send that data across the ocean and other long distances.