Ask your local small business owner how much they appreciate being able to have their own website. Previously their options for letting people know about their business were newspaper advertising, yellow pages or TV.

Oh, don't worry, your website license will be part of a business registration package.

Most people consider such things a minor inconvenience.

In China you already have to apply for a website license (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICP_license). And most people do not care about it very much. I once made a site with a friend from China, and he applied for the ICP license, even though the server was in the US and there was not a single word in Chinese on the site. In my friend's opinion it was a natural thing to do for a law abiding citizen.

China is a North American politician's wet dream.

You might be surprised at how hard a sell web presence is in some areas...sigh

Agreed. This needs to be kept at the forefront of geek's minds: Farmville, Facebook, Hulu, and Twitter (and other entertainment devices) are the Internet. So long as the entertainment (circuses) flows, the masses will be happy. Regardless of what regulation happens!