One of the unpleasant realities is that all of that hardware that normally makes the internet work smoothly costs money. The current dispute involving Verizon, Netflix and Cogent is all about money. It's easy to blame Verizon. After all, they are the ones who are getting our money. And Verizon may be at fault to some extent. But my guess is that all three companies are at fault to some extent. The following articles help explain this dispute.
http://www.cybertelecom.org/industry/cogent.htm