They don't pay their ISPs to get their packets all the way to the customer. They're reliant on somebody else's property to get them there.

That is how the Internet works. You used multiple networks' property just to reply to my HN post. I doubt you paid all those networks, and I doubt that you could realistically use the Internet if you had to pay every network that stood between you and the websites you like to visit. Why should Internet companies have to pay your ISP when you do not have to pay theirs? Nowhere in the design of the Internet is your connection differentiated from an Internet company's connection.

Really, the point of the Internet is that you can communicate with other Internet users without having to worry about what ISP or network they are connected to or what arrangements govern that connection.