> even relatively remote locations become "accessible" for 100 Gbps+ fiber or microwave connectivity, and _very_ remote locations for tens of Gbps.

I’m guessing:

1. You’ve never priced out said circuits before

2. Never seen the lead times and minimum contract periods on them

3. Don’t realize in general how hard it is to actually max out circuits like that.

Shipping / freight company is generally still a preferred solution to moving very very large amounts of data even in 2020. Your own employer still ships large datasets that way too. Here’s a link from 2007:

https://royal.pingdom.com/fedex-still-faster-than-the-intern...

But from contacts I know inside Google, it’s still done regularly.