I had started to write a detailed explanation of what I meant, but then got pressed by time and just wrote this misleading sentence.
This was relating to A380s, the topic of the current thread.
One model is to have a high-capacity plane like A380 fly the longhaul to a "major" destination and then smaller planes, from the same airline or often a partner, fly to the nearby "secondary" destinations.
Now we see multiply PtoP longhaul routes with smaller fuel efficient planes (B787, A350 and soon A321), strengthening competition of that model.

Sure airlines still only operates longhaul from their hub(s). We all agree on that. But they fly to many "secondary" destinations that used to be only accessible by tranisting at "major" destinations.
I guess that my point of view is from the pax side rather than the airline side. Lots of nonstops options are now available from or to many secondary destinations. Again, I am not disputing what we discussed in the NCE thread that airlines only fly from their hub. That is a different point. But competition is increasing because foreign airlines can viably fly direct to these "secondary" destinations, (from their hub) while the domestic airline can only offer a Hub&Spoke option.