It was not meant in a literal sense, I hope that much was clear. The language was suggestive on purpose considering the article being commented on. A longer path takes longer time as speed of light varies comparably little, that much is physics.

And sending traffic by way of a third party is very likely to make for a longer path, for most people in most circumstances. Not by necessity but because few have that lousy routing agreements, unless we're talking about special circumstances such as 6to4 tunnels and the like.