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> No two devices on the internet are directly connected.

I get the need for brevity and simplicity in a post like this, but is there really a need for obviously false statements?

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You can't get there from here.

What’s a counter example?

My router and my desktop is one of several billion counterexamples.

Your route and desktop are not an example of an internet connection. That's an intranet connection. I think that's what they mean -- for two devices to be connected on the internet there's always (at least) routers in between.

I can infer what they mean, it doesn't make it a correct statement. Maybe I'm being pedantic, but routers are devices too, and I have computers with multiple NICs that act as routers as well as servers. Intranet vs internet is an arbitrary distinction. If a "device" has an IP address that's reachable from "the internet" then it's on the internet, regardless.

The article's point is that to get information from Device A to Device B across the internet is never a straight link from Device A to Device B, there are always middlemen whose purpose it is just to forward the data along. There's always something between the end nodes.

Yes, and that's simply and demonstrably false. There are not always middlemen, as I have already explained.

Sigh

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