] Wisconsin's Democratic governor thinks it's not fair that
] tangible items get taxed while downloads, like music,
] ebooks, software, etc., go completely untaxed. So, he
] proposes to rectify the situation by having Wisconsin's
] 5% state sales tax apply to Internet downloads. This is
] kind of like that famous hoax about how the USPS wants to
] charge people 5 cents for e-mail messages, except it's
] for real. What a dumb idea.
]
] Of course, when you look more closely at the idea, it
] looks even dumber:
]
] A little-noticed provision of the Democratic
] governor's proposed state budget would extend the sales
] tax to those Internet transactions, officials said
] Monday. There would be no Internet sales tax police,
] however, because compliance would be on the honor system.
]
] That's right: it's voluntary.

Everyday I see just how out of touch most of the country is about technology. Using the Internet as an avenue for traditional distribution methods is like using a Kentucky Derby Winner to pull a milk cart. But most people and sadly many large companies see it as just "like Television, but interactive." People are forcing buisness models that work just fine in traditional markets on the web, and then sue people when it fails.

Embrace that is it NOT TV, and NOT Radio, and in fact NOT like anything you have every dealt with. Embrace the minimal cost of storage most people have, and adapt business models to exploit this instead of jumping on things like the Broadfact flag and other tools created to stop us from using what we paid for.

Stop trying to make us a subscription society. Any decent financial planner will tell you renting anything instead of owning is throwing money away. Take your streaming Napster bullshit and shove it.

WI governor proposes state sales tax on downloads