"Netflix chose to attempt to deliver that traffic to Verizon through a few third-party transit providers with limited capacity over connections specifically to be used only for balanced traffic flows"

But isn't that a misstatement of fact? CDNs like Level3 do nothing but transfer data, usually media files, onto consumer ISP networks when those ISP's customers' request them.

In what dream world are Akamai and Level3 receiving as much data from Verizon's consumer network as they are sending? Why would any ISP expect a link with a CDN to have a balanced traffic flow?