The argument I see most commonly from ISPs (and seemingly re-stated here) is basically, "Why should all of our customers pay for the upgrades we'd have to implement if only the Netflix subscribers would benefit from such upgrades?"

The idea being that, no matter what they do, the cost of it will just be passed along to the consumer. So their solution is to charge Netflix for the upgrades. That way, when Netflix passes those costs on to the consumers, only the ones who actually have Netflix will be paying for the upgrades, as opposed to all Verizon customers.

It makes sense, once you assume Verizon/ISPs and Netflix will just raise their rates to pay off these upgrades/charges.

But again, you have to take the assumption that, regardless, the costs will be passed onto the consumers, for granted. If you think the ISPs will try and eat the costs, then this argument doesn't fly. But they're saying they won't, so... they probably won't.

I'm not trying to pass moral judgement on this (I gave up trying to convince you guys back when every comment I wrote about this was downvoted to hell and back), just saying what the argument the ISPs are giving actually is. It's just not as "left field" as you might think.