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Comment by yuvadam | Hacker News Reader

This is a great initiative, and one that sparks an interesting dilemma.

Might the US wake up one day to find itself secluded on the internets? Just like the average Nigerian, who has exactly 0% chance of successfully ordering a product on eBay.

What happens when the world becomes fed up with the horrendous US legal system? I can easily see a file-sharing site (e.g. megaupload) blocking all US IP addresses from accessing its service. Essentially annulling any trace of liability against a corrupt and rotten legal and political system.

Granted, we're still pretty high up on the slippery slope. But, it still would be very interesting the moment the US becomes the country with 'unfavorable political climate'.

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I was wondering why more websites weren't already doing this when SOPA/PIPA were on the horizon.

The US has a problem with politics and when that problem endangers the internet, to me at least, the simplest solution is to block US users.

It has got to be tempting now for site owners, especially considering how US courts do not seem to have much trouble seizing websites. If the site isn't US facing surely that would put a big dent in any legal action made stateside.

The problem is still the huge percentage of American traffic on the web. E.g. on Iconfinder.com about 50% are US users, so blocking them would hurt ad income by about the same amount.

But that's also changing - North America had the least growth in internet usage from 2000-2011: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

The US population is roughly 11% of all internet users.

If the current political trends continue to the point it jeopardizes my business, and creates unnecessary risk, I would have no problem blocking ±10% of my users, right then and there.

I sell a Windows app. Americans may be only 11% of the population, but they're about 50% of my customer base. They buy licenses, which gives me incentive to continue working on the software. The Russian and Indian bloggers (for example) who have reviewed my app positively have moved the needle very slightly, if at all. No chance I'd give up my US customers willingly.

(Edit: I'm from South Africa, not the US.)

I really hope that we do wake up. A cynical view might be that we'll instead force everybody else to adopt our draconian ip laws (we're trying really hard at least), in which case this exact scenario will depressingly become a non-issue.

Speaking of waking up, having three emergency vehicles truck by your window at 2 am with sirens blazing is a really unpleasant way to wake up. At least I got to see this interesting topic :)

Unless the American hegemony collapses in the next few years, I think that it is a realistic view rather than a cynical one.

US is certainly going on a trend of isolation by either bullying other countries or putting sanctions and such on their imports.

Right, punish the users for the failings of their government. What are they supposed to do?

Change their government.

It's not about punishing the user's, but about keeping yourself out of jail.

Why should the operators of a site risk getting extradited to the US, when what they are doing is perfectly legal in their home countries and lots of other countries?

If you are a user and want to access this site just buy VPN access in the free world and enjoy uncensored browsing.

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