There has been much talk lately regarding Net Neutrality and what its repeal will mean for the internet. The only people appearing to be in favor of the decision so far have been the millions of fake responses from stolen identities on the FCC's website. The operation to feign public support woefully backfired, but in the end, it did not matter.

While consumers are bracing for the ever coming price increases that they have been forewarned about, businesses have also been feeling the pain of uncertainty. The entire landscape of doing business on the internet is about to change.

There is one industry though that has not received as much publicity, but is responsible for a vast majority of the content online. That would be the adult entertainment industry.

How big is the industry?

Many people use the internet for wholesome reasons. Running their business, socializing with friends or researching for school. Those are just a few of the many uses that the internet can provide. There is, however, also x-rated material that can be found online. So much so, that despite most of the material being free to view, the adult entertainment industry makes billions every year.

To put it frankly, there is no other bigger industry or topic in terms of sheer quantity online than adult entertainment.

Pornhub might be one of the more popular businesses as they have had a practice of making overall viewership statistics available during certain times of the year. Due to that, we know that right after the Super Bowl is one of their highest traffic times of the year.

Will changes affect the industry?

It is hard to say in the short term what effects the repeal of net neutrality will have on businesses online.

It is unlikely though that the doomsday scenarios of tiered pricing and fast lanes for paying companies will happen in the short term. The only reason being is the public backlash would outweigh the short-term profit increase. Make no mistake though, when the time is right, internet service providers (ISP) will take full advantage to squeeze extra revenue wherever they can.

When Comcast slowed down Netflix's streaming capabilities, all in an effort to get Netflix to pay a premium for the same service, the company was forced to oblige. With millions of monthly subscribing users, it would have been a death knell to call Comcast's bluff and risk a prolonged period of buffering or intermittent service. Should ISP's play the same game with adult entertainment companies, they may be in for a tougher fight.

This industry makes billions of dollars a year, but the majority of the content online is free to view for consumers. This is where they differ from the Netflix situation.

By playing this type of extortion game, ISP's hope users would ultimately just flock to the sites that pay the premium to not be slowed down.

The ISP's are banking on having these companies compete with one another. Even if it is on an unfair playing field.

It is by far the biggest industry online in terms of presence. If companies banded together to fight the ruling, they could possibly have enough sway to reverse this decision before it is too late. We were entertained when they reported how many people visited their websites at certain times of the year. Maybe they should also share some of the viewing habits of the politicians who are threatening the very existence of the internet.
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