What is the incentive to operate a TCP/IP node?

Question

I mean, why does anybody relay messages to other nodes? Why are these eleven good people below helping me send my bytes to their destination?

    traceroute to stackoverflow.com (198.252.206.140), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  0.819 ms  0.558 ms  0.369 ms
 2  50-1-126-1.dsl.static.sonic.net (50.1.126.1)  22.058 ms  23.257 ms  25.206 ms
 3  gig1-34.cr1.colaca01.sonic.net (75.101.36.17)  24.717 ms  23.092 ms  25.333 ms
 4  po3.cr1.lsatca11.sonic.net (75.101.33.166)  24.745 ms  23.541 ms  26.821 ms
 5  0.xe-5-1-0.gw.pao1.sonic.net (69.12.211.1)  23.595 ms  23.215 ms  23.841 ms
 6  xe-1-0-6.ar1.pao1.us.nlayer.net (69.22.130.85)  24.990 ms  25.273 ms  28.219 ms
 7  ae1-100.pao10.ip4.tinet.net (77.67.68.141)  25.041 ms  23.339 ms  25.202 ms
 8  xe-1-1-0.nyc32.ip4.tinet.net (89.149.185.162)  99.445 ms  99.928 ms  100.050 ms
 9  internap-gw.ip4.tinet.net (77.67.70.42)  96.533 ms  99.045 ms  95.439 ms
10  border1.po1-20g-bbnet1.nym008.pnap.net (216.52.95.1)  99.613 ms  96.681 ms
    border1.po2-20g-bbnet2.nym008.pnap.net (216.52.95.65)  99.446 ms
11  stackexchange-1.border1.nym008.pnap.net (74.201.252.22)  99.039 ms  96.112 ms  98.540 ms
12  stackoverflow.com (198.252.206.140)  100.065 ms  99.299 ms  96.554 ms

You have Comcast and Google there. That's all. Not much of an example. — Michael Hampton, Mar 14 '14 at 19:07
This is elementary routing and networking, and as such isn't a fit for this site. — joeqwerty, Mar 14 '14 at 19:11
fair enough, EDITED - tracedroute to stackoverflow... more mystery now — pinhead, Mar 14 '14 at 19:11
You've changed your target from Google to SO, but it's still the same issue. http://serverfault.com/questions/49765/how-does-ipv4-subnetting-work — squillman, Mar 14 '14 at 19:11
"Why are these eleven good people below helping me send my bytes to their destination?" Because that is what BGP decided is the best route to your destination. — Rex, Mar 14 '14 at 19:11

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 14 '14 at 19:31

For one of two reasons:

The traffic has value to them.
Someone is paying them to.

Looking at your traceroute and making some guesses: Your router is carrying your traffic because that has value to you. Sonic is carrying your traffic because you pay them to. Tinet is carrying the traffic because it's the cheapest way for them to satisfy their customers. Pnap is carrying the traffic because Stackoverflow is paying them to. Stackoverflow is carrying the traffic because the traffic has value to them.

What is the incentive to operate a TCP/IP node?

1 Answers1