If Netflix wasn't sharing costs in upgrading peering links I agree, but I never understood that to be the point of the debate. Instead it's that ISPs want to rate and charge differently for different providers / content types.
This allows them to try and charge the customer more, but possibly more importantly to charge service providers for access to their customer base. The alternative is that you pay your ISP for X bytes and it doesn't matter what they are or who it's from.
My friend's argument was that the "Meta" i.e. what the debate was really about was about Netflix and others trying to avoid paying their fair share for peering arrangements.
And that the stated reasoning behind the neutrality debate was null and void, because it wasn't what the debate was really about.
This allows them to try and charge the customer more, but possibly more importantly to charge service providers for access to their customer base. The alternative is that you pay your ISP for X bytes and it doesn't matter what they are or who it's from.