It is not about the last mile. Problem is mostly with increased international traffic saturating the large pipes.
Everything I've read is about the last mile.
And considering the major uptick is caused by video for work and for classes, I would guess that is 99% domestic, so what would be the cause of a massive increase in international traffic?
In large congestion scenarios, what impacts people is large amount of data being transacted by large nodes.
CDNs are caches. I am sure it gets much more complex with systems at Youtube scale, but they don't keep all files at all edges. Furthermore, they know what the fuck they are doing, and if ISPs and governments are going "shit, our bandwidth is nuts, hey Youtube/Netflix can you cool it a little?" then maybe there is something to it.
Why and how is everyone an armchair NOC operator/epidemiologist/supply chain manager? How is it so hard to believe that when you get past certain politicians/bureaucracies, there are smart people working to figure out these hard problems that likely know a little bit more than we do?