[benj111]

Why is the ownership structure of YC important? You know how the internet works right?

For better or worse, 'american' is the defacto standard on the internet, but please remember that only a small percentage of the global population is USian the in all probability the person you're speaking to isn't from the US.

[hnfong]

The English (no pun intended) speaking population is more likely to be from the US than the global population.

Disclaimer: Not English. Not American.

[benj111]

I would say that the us accounts for less than half of English speaking netizens.

UK, Australia, new zealand Canada already add up to a sizeable chunk of the US's population. Then add in 1% of India, or China (I assume some proportion has access outside the great firewall) and you've got a population bigger than the US.

[hnfong]

If you add up the numbers of the countries you mentioned (together with 1% of India or China), you'll realize that it's smaller than the US population...

US: 331.9 million

UK: 67.33 million AU: 25.69 million CA: 38.25 million NZ: 5.123 million IN: 1.408 billion * 0.01 = 14m

[benj111]

Well the 1% was pulled out of my arse.

Point is some very small percentage of the rest of the world is going to dwarf the US. Yes the US will be the single biggest demographic but less than 50% of the total.

I haven't been able to find many solid stats, but eg English language Wikipedia, the US has 22k active editors out of 59k total.