Most large ISPs won't freely peer with Netflix though; that's actually an industry standard, because peering is usually regulated by some kind of traffic balance between packets entering and exiting the network; e.g.: network A will peer with network B is they both exchange similar amounts of traffic in both directions. In Netflix case, it's obvious that this is impossible.
In those cases, Netflix would rely on paying the transit service; that is, they pay Cogent to bring their traffic into Comcast, because Comcast and Cogent already have some (secret) agreement in place (either feee or paid peer, who knows); Netflix would be happy to just pay Cogent to reach Comcast users. They would call it "a compromise" because their best option would be to freely peer with Comcast, but again, it's been an industry standard forever that peering is not only a factor of physical connection, but also of commercial power and quantity of packets sent and received (who needs to send more is the one that has to pay).
Netflix is now saying that Comcast is deliberately letting their peering with Cogent saturate and refusing to upgrade it (or offering economic conditions that Cogent won't accept, which is the same). This way, Netflix must enter a direct (paid) peering agreement with Comcast, to be able to offer good quality to Comcast users; in that agreement, Comcast will let Netflix pay whatever they see fit to reach their users. The peering here would obviously be paid and not free, since (again) there is a strong disproportion between packets going in/out the network.