What is meant when it is said that the Internet has an "hourglass" architecture?

Question

Accepted Answer

The Internet protocol stack has a "thin waist" in the middle, like an hourglass.  The Internet Protocol (IP) is the only network-layer protocol in the middle layer of the stack.  Every other layer has multiple protocols at that layer.

Answer

Packets flow from top to bottom down the stack, like sand in an hour glass.  Then, on the receiver side, if the hourglass is reversed, packets flow up the stack, like sand flowing in the opposite direction.

Answer

... after matching on the source and destination IP address in the datagram header, the action taken is to forward the datagram to the output port associated with that source and destination IP address pair.

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What is meant when it is said that the Internet has an "hourglass" architecture?

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