I know Netflix runs their own edge nodes, which is precisely why OP sounds incompetent and uninformed. Netflix has spent lots of time and effort into analyzing and building the architecture which is optimized for them.

> Or do you think facebook,google,aol,tripadvisor and pretty much anyone beside HotNewStartup are incompetent?

Far from it, and that's precisely my point. At Facebook scale, it certainly makes sense to run your own data centers. At HotNewStartup, it obviously doesn't. Competence is finding the solution which works best for your scale and organization, not following some generic rule.