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Comment by tehwalrus | Hacker News Reader

but you miss the point - if they don't pay, it doesn't affect my ability to visit them (unless Verizon et al are part of the backbone network on the route between their server host and my house).

I'm not saying it's a good thing - it's a very bad thing to have no NN law! - just that my browsing will be largely unaffected.

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I'm saying the chilling effect means you won't have an option at all. American content creators/web app makers aren't going to start with a global product; they simply don't have the capital to bootstrap something globally. They would normally stick to just an American market, but now they can't because the barriers to entry are now too high. So it dies in its infancy.

So yeah, creators in other parts of the world will be largely unaffected, but -- not to be xenophobic -- how much of the internet is created by Americans?

I don't know who you think will stop publishing content online, just because their website loads slower? Most websites aren't businesses, (I have about 8, none of which are) and as long as cheap/free hosting (e.g. outside the US) still exists, Americans will continue to publish blogs and hobby sites, even not-for-profits like wikipedia will still work. It'll load slower in the US, but it will still exist (and, if they host it outside the US, the global community will still be able to contibute normally - unless I've misunderstood IP routing, which is not a subject I know very much about.)

"Loading slower" is an absolute 100% deal breaker for a Youtube competitor or streaming music service or VoIP or many other applications.

> if they don't pay, it doesn't affect my ability to visit them

Obviously, without net neutrality this is not guaranteed. That's the entire point to all of this.

Sure you can visit them but from my understanding they will go very slowly unless they pay for preference. Is this not the case?

Wouldn't VPN companies be affected as well? That would greatly affect my browsing.

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