Bass-ackwards: Reprise

I have been doing quite a lot of thinking about the network recently. This is partly inspired by some of the things I read
on telepocaypse.net and on skypejournal.com. Martin Geddes, in his diatribe (well, a few lines anyway) on Bass-ackwards hit on an interesting concept. What if we extend this concept out and say that, in fact, the entire telecom industry is bass-ackwards?
'Convergence' and 'triple-play' and content services are all the rage, but the telcos have no idea how to do them and it's not their core competence.
But why are telcos always trying to make their crust on the downlink? Sell this to the customer, sell that to the customer, deliver TV, deliver content etc.
Turn around, for gods sake, stand with your customers and face the ravening hounds of ecommerce that are attempting to force themselves down the same downlink.
Telcos should stop treating the customers like cattle, to be milked for all they're worth, and instead help them to achieve the best use of the network. Telcos control the access, they just seem to be unaware of the power that brings them.

Be at the edge, looking in, instead of at the centre, looking out.
In a P2P world, the edge is where it's at!