This would all be fine and good if Level3 didn't make money from selling bandwidth. Comcast doesn't have to buy a connection from Level3; Level3 will give Comcast a link for free because they know they can turn around and charge their own customers for access to it. Comcast is really just cutting out the middleman here; and that scares Level3.
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.
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.
But they cant cut out the middleman. Comcast doesnt have a direct connection to netflix or anywhere else on the internet.
I think Level 3 should straight up shut off their peering agreement with comcast and watch how all the last mile customers blame comcast for the issue, until such time as comcast stops playing games.
That assumes they blame Comcast. Maybe they blame Netflix for not working.
If you get to set the narrative such that one side or the other as the only ones who gain from the interconnection, this becomes trivial, but the hard facts are that both sides want the interconnection, but to try as hard to pretend that the other side is the more desperate one in the deal.
> All of their customers will still have to go through middlemen.
Not if they're watching Netflix. As I read the deal, Comcast and Netflix will be directly connected, so if you're a Comcast customer watching Netflix, your packets only traverse Comcast's and Netflix's networks; no third parties are involved.
But the Internet doesn't work that way: if Level3 shut off their peering with Comcast, Level3's customers would just find another transit provider and route around L3 because those companies are still in business to make money. They don't care about squabbles between Comcast and L3; they just want their monetized traffic to get delivered. The last-mile customers probably wouldn't even notice; but Level3's customers would likely be forced to pay more for transit from another company. But they would still pay.
