What's the benefit of larger models, id you have a smaller one with internet access?

so I'm still new at this so I'm trying to wrap my head around some of it. my understanding is a bigger model will just have more knowledge than a smaller one? but if a smaller one has internet access wouldn't it be just as good if not better then a bigger one without? for example qwen3.8 27b and flash next are all the hype. but if I tell my 27b model to use the internet for whatever it needs. does that make up for what it's missing from the flash next model?