I will sketch out my argument as follows:
1. Data transfer requires mutual consent or else it either a) doesn't happen or b) is considered a network attack
2. On the internet today the majority of transfer flows are asymmetric; regular users download more than they upload. I don't know if this is the natural way of the universe or it happens this way because of the way residential broadband is structured i.e. more download capability than upload
3. People who have more outflow than inflow pay to be connected to the internet (i.e. servers)
4. People who have more inflow than outflow pay to be connected to the internet (i.e. regular users)
5. Somewhere this traffic has to meet in the middle and transition from a network where the sender is paying to the network where the receiver is paying
6. This is typically called a peering point and the transit here is usually settlement-free not because it's usually balanced (though in many cases it is) but because it's the point at which the sender-pays network meets up with the receiver-pays network. In other words the sender pays for the network transit from their servers all the way up to the peering point and the receiver pays for the network transit from the peering point onwards to their house.
7. When looking at the problem this way it's hard for me to determine who is "using" more network bandwidth because again, data is only transferred by the consent of parties on both the sender-pays and receiver-pays network
I understand the argument that Verizon is a Tier 1 ISP and thus deserves to be paid for transit. The Tier 1 ISP is actually Verizon Business a largely separate division of Verizon from Verizon Residential. But Level 3 is also a Tier 1 ISP and thus by that logic also deserves to be paid for transit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network#List_of_tier_1_n...
I also understand the argument that "all peering needs to be roughly equal or else someone needs to pay" but again when company A has customers who send more than they receive and company B has customers who receive more than they send I can't understand why A and B don't agree to let the ratios move away from balanced. I understand historically the ratios were close to even but when they're both selling asymmetric service to their customers why insist on symmetric peering?
EDIT:
From Wikipedia "peering" is sometimes called "sender keeps"
"In computer networking, peering is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the users of each network. The pure definition of peering is settlement-free, "bill-and-keep," or "sender keeps all," meaning that neither party pays the other in association with the exchange of traffic; instead, each derives and retains revenue from its own customers."
