Wonderful explanation! (And I wholeheartedly concur with Ira's wonderment that the whole darn thing works at all.)
Not to detract from your analogy, though, I'll make my own (which I'm able to do only by virtue of yours), which I think is slightly clearer as respects my question.
My initial high-speed burst of data is the few people right in front of the doors when they open on "Black Friday."
Once they're in, the flow of customers slows down to a crawl while the people behind them in the crowd try to jostle their way through the doors.
And eventually, the store guards force the crowd into an orderly line, and the store quickly fills up with, well...shoppers is a polite way of putting it.
Many thanks!
