From my understanding of the situation this isn't exactly what Netflix wanted, but what Netflix wanted was to get something for nothing, to get something that they were already paying someone else for, for free.
Basically, Netflix currently pays Cogent to peer the Comcast Network, but Netflix has so much one way traffic that Cogent couldn't handle it, resulting in what we all perceived to be"throttling" of Netflix. So Netflix tried to cut out Cogent by going directly to Comcast, and hoped that Netflix was so big, that Comcast would peer with Netflix for Free.
Comcast of course shot that down, but offered an alternative proposal where they can peer directly, eliminating the congestion of going through Cogent, for probably cheaper than what Cogent was charging, since previously Cogent was peering with Comcast for free and selling that bandwidth to Netflix.
So if my understanding of this is correct, then Netflix is better off dealing with Comcast directly and us end consumers get our HD (& 4k!?) streams much faster and without interruption. Win Win situation.