First-order effects

• State legislatures including New York's will draft net neutrality bills in 2018 whose immediate purpose is to force a court ruling on whether the FCC can preempt them.
• ISPs operating in multiple states face the prospect of divergent obligations — contract terms with New York and Montana already differ from their national practices after those governors' executive orders.

Second-order effects

• If legislation stalls or gets preempted, expect more governors to follow New York's and Montana's route of binding ISPs through state contracting requirements, converting procurement power into regulatory leverage.
• A patchwork of state rules gives edge companies like Etsy and Vimeo — already challenging the FCC in court alongside 22 states asking an appeals court to reinstate the rules — a stronger argument that only a uniform federal standard or restored Title II rules can avoid fifty compliance regimes.

Third-order effects

• The fight tests how far federal agencies can use preemption clauses to lock in deregulation against state opposition; a state win would establish a template for states re-regulating broadband whenever Washington retreats, while a loss would narrow state authority over interstate communications broadly.