An interesting concept in the context of digital audio. If you are streaming over the internet, you have no way of knowing how many hundreds of switches, routers, converters, junctions there are. They are not made of audiophile-approved materials. Their power supplies are probably switched mode and maybe don't even have gold connections. The routing is probably changing dynamically all the time. The data may even have been beamed into space and back. Is anyone arguing that 10 "doodads" (I like that word) in the digital path are inaudible, but that 100 are audible? How about 1000? Or 10,000? Surely at times, internet streaming would be unlistenably bad.
In fact, we will never know how many doodads there are, and we will never be able to hear, or measure a difference. When it comes to packet-based digital audio, there is no "signal path". This only applies in the analogue world. The digital stream is completely different. It is not in the signal path. Sure there may be analogue noise etc. induced after the final node, but it is basic engineering to solve this (not that all DACs will be perfect in this regard).