I'm not sure I understand the difference between Hetzner and a customer. They are both utilizing the ISP for the same purpose, transporting data. We still need to pay for an Internet connection for our servers. You're not paying the ISP for access to a specific person's server, you're paying to be part of their network which happens to be connected to other networks. Everyone pays to be part of the network.
The end user is not paying for access to content, so the fact that Hetzner is providing something requested is irrelevant because that's not what the internet ever was. In your diagram, Hetzner is an end user and whether it's up or down data you still need to pay.
The end users are not Hetzner's customers - the people paying them for hosting are. If they want to lease a line and offer access to that leased line at a premium to their customers for better connections during heavy times they are free to do that. It's not the cable companies job to make sure Hetzner's customers are happy though. There is already a framework in place to achieve what they want.
You're supposed to pay your ISP. The services you use are supposed to pay their ISP:s. The ISP:s that interconnect are supposed to agree on payment for created load via peering agreements in between them.
Your ISP is not supposed to both ask you, the other ISP and also the client of the other ISP, your subscription service, for money, independent of actual load.
The internet is much more than just HTTP traffic - the purpose isn't to provide access to content so the fact that these are content providers (i.e. data is requested) doesn't matter. I can host my backups via a web server at home and wget them from my remote server, the fact I "requested" that from the remote server means nothing.
The ISPs customers are paying for a connection to the ISPs network, nothing more. Every connection to the network is a node - in a network neutral world the fact they are a content provider is meaningless. If they need to push more data, they need to pay.
I really don't see the difference between this, and a large company attempting to send their backups via the web. We could easily set it up so the remote servers are "requesting" that data -- but it's not the cable subscriber's job to subsidize my network infrastructure so we lease a line to ensure the speed we need. We have over 100mbps connection on both sides, but that is only a 100mbps connection to the ISP. If we need to move data at that speed all the way from point A to B, then we need to pay for the infrastructure to do that.
"The ISPs customers are paying for a connection to the ISPs network, nothing more."
They are also (usually) paying for a specific connection speed. If a customer is paying for a 100mbps connection and Hertzner has 100mbps of spare bandwidth, but the ISP consistently only has capacity to relay 20mbps per second from Hertzner to my computer, then I would argue that it is the ISP's responsibility to upgrade their hardware so that they can fulfil their obligations to customers that they have sold 100mbps connections to.
Then the correct solution is to use those peering agreements in between ISP:s to get that money to expand the infrastructure as necessary, and if the ISP:s with customers creating the traffic can't pay then they can chose between stopping the traffic or charging their own clients more.
In no circumstance should an ISP be directly charging the customer of another ISP.
I agree but that's not what's happening here. They are just directly passing on the cost to provide service - the customers are paying Hetzner not the ISP (unless I'm reading wrong - but I did double check).
In this situation, Core-Backbone pays for peering with DTAG and Hetzner pays them to transport their data. I'm not seeing how that is an ISP billing another ISPs customer? Hetzner is paying Core-Backbone, Core-Backbone is paying DTAG. Same as Netflix paying Cogent to transport their data.
I'm primarily thinking of cases here like consumer ISP:s wanting to charge Netflix directly. This particular case might be quite different from what I had in mind.
What is the internet protocol by which you push data from one node to another without the other node's consent? Every one I can think of would generally be called a DoS attack.
There's no such thing as "push" data, it's like trying to push a rope. Any reasonably sized data stream has the consent of both parties on the network.
The internet is not the web. SMTP is "push", VoIP is "push", scp from my local machine to a remote machine is "push" ... sure, there generally should be some form of consent on the part of the receiving party, but just because HTTP is limited to pulling stuff, doesn't mean there aren't less limited protocols around.
SMTP: nope, the server accepts your connection before you do anything
VoIP: generally negotiated somehow before the UDP "pushing" happens
scp: just because in your mind it's a "push" doesn't make it so. In reality the other machine is sending you acks, without which your machine wouldn't continue "push"ing and thus, again consent is required. finally you're logged in to that other machine which nearly universally equates to consent
It doesn't matter that the customers are requesting it or if they want it.
I request my Amazon package, but amazon still pays for delivery--even if amazon charges me for the shipping, UPS or Fed Ex get paid by Amazon.
The internet works sort of like that, except small ISPs will still pay to receive since their network doesn't interconnect with everyone else. ISPs have always charged CDNs for access to their network.
As a practical matter, not all traffic is requested. Which is one reason that the receiver shouldn't pay. Also, big data centers sending massive amounts of data are the in the best position to negotiate good rates and be efficient. It makes sense to lay the cost at their feet.
It's more like if you pay for next day delivery but the delivery company decide that their delivery trucks aren't large enough to keep up with next day deliveries, so they then ask Amazon to buy them larger trucks or their customers' shipments are going to be late.
The end user is not paying for access to content, so the fact that Hetzner is providing something requested is irrelevant because that's not what the internet ever was. In your diagram, Hetzner is an end user and whether it's up or down data you still need to pay.
The end users are not Hetzner's customers - the people paying them for hosting are. If they want to lease a line and offer access to that leased line at a premium to their customers for better connections during heavy times they are free to do that. It's not the cable companies job to make sure Hetzner's customers are happy though. There is already a framework in place to achieve what they want.