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