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Congress considerd taxes for everything on the internet.
This includes the already wildly unpopular and stupid idea of taxing e-mails, as well as forcing people to pay tax on any item bought over the internet. This would probably make buying anything on sites like e-bay a tremendous pain in the ass.
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At any rate, Congress has voted several times now on the e-mail tax issue, and it has failed repeatedly -- mainly because of its intent. Previously, its implicit intent was to stop spam, which smart legislators realized simply was unrealistic under the proposed law.
Now, here is where I actually pull a 180 and support an e-mail tax: Setting aside the whole AOL/Yahoo scuttlebutt, I can see a day when the U.S. Postal Service is rendered unnecessary. Frankly, I want to see it decommissioned. The only time that I bother to use the USPS is for bills that will not accept online payment. We're quickly reaching an event horizon where all those places will disappear.
Scrym have defended the USPS, saying that 39 or 41 cents is a perfectly acceptable fee to send a first-class envelope anywhere inside the U.S. That's terrific -- but honestly, what can you send in a first-class envelope that you can't send in an e-mail? I would much rather pay a quarter-cent tax on an e-mail than a 41-cent tax on an envelope.
I could send 124 e-mails for the current price of one stamp. The USPS has a schedule that will jump stamp prices yet again next year, I believe. And let's face it; there are better ways of communication now than an e-mail anyway. It would take me a fucking long time to actually send 124 e-mails.
On a side tangent, I don't really care about the gas prices. I still pay less than anyone else in the world for gas, and higher prices only force me to drive less -- which is a good thing. Plus, I figure I pay $4 for a half-gallon of ice cream, so what the hell?
Things you can send in a first-class envelope for 41 cents: Photos (digital will likely be higher resolution via e-mail); coupons (can be downloaded); cards (e-cards are less expensive and don't waste paper); money (sending secure electronic payments is faster and more secure); tickets (can be ordered online); letters (duh); bills (online billing is available and doesn't waste paper); etc.
It's all just paper, paper, paper. The only thing I can think of that might have a legitimate demand for physical mailing with a first-class stamp is a legal document. Otherwise, I would say that the postal service is propped up on a wasteful sham of bulk-rate mass mailings. Get rid of the USPS, get rid of junk mail. At least you can filter electronic spam, and at least it doesn't waste millions of trees.
I have to admit, I don't understand the postage situation in America. You have a national postal service that sends mail AND parcels, as well as private services that send ONLY parcels? Why shouldn't both continue to exist? And why would getting rid of the national postal service (USPS?) get rid of junkmail? Wouldn't junkmail vendors just get a different service to deliver their stuff?
Let me say that the saving grace of the USPS, as Scott rightly pointed out in a previous debate about it, is that as of this year it is finally independently funded by its own revenues -- i.e. It no longer runs as part of the federal operating budget.
But Jason, you say, how can you advocate all this whilst working in the newspaper industry?
Good question, me. Recycle, recycle, recycle, I say. In the meantime, we're scrambling to find ways to stay financially viable while reducing our waste. I see newspapers moving entirely online within a very short window. I really look forward to the day when printing presses are obsolete.
BTW, you're invited up the tree. I've got a mad-ass daydream of one day living out the Swiss Family Robinson motif. I think there's an XKCD comic about that.
Jason, you're about the need to remove paper, but it's really not going to be feasible for another few decades or so. Once of the first things that needs to happen is that E-ink or some other screen technology needs to become more ubiquitous and affordable so that information that is currently transferred via paper medium (books, bills, newspapers) can be read in the places that people currently read. I am not sure that any change to technology is going to reduce the places that we read or interact with our media.
As far as the post office and direct mail goes, I don't think there is the political will to do anything to the USPS. You would not only be fighting every direct mailer (aka. about half of the mid-size or larger printers in the US), but also every bank, every car dealer, and every vacation company (not to mention Xerox, Kodak, and Hiedleberg). This is how they communicate and target their customers. The average consumer would not miss the Post Office, but there's not a justified reason for elminating an entire market.
There is limited nutrition In the ground, and if you take that out of the ground (in the form of trees) it's eventually going to run out.
luckily, new nutrition is added in the form of dead animals and plants... but not fast enough.
energy to power our screens also costs energy, it damages our nature as much as paper.
Thus, this is just one more point in favor of the USPS. For all the harm you get from having the government involve itself in what could be a private business, you are able to foster the existence of all sorts of business in other sectors. How many other businesses besides Netflix wouldn't exist without the Post Office? No magazine would exist. Amazon probably wouldn't make it. Just about any business that has to send bills and invoices by mail would suffer an increased cost of doing business.
A government run post office is like a government owned road. Sure, it ruins pure capitalism in the industry of privately owned roads, but it allows the thousands of businesses that depend on roads to flourish.
Holding a domain without providing content of any value and stopping others from getting such domains should be taxed heavily.
This guy who own the rights to any .cm domain that doesn't hit an actual site and makes a great deal of money just from people mistyping various .com domains. Currently there are negotiations going on for the .om (Oman) and .co (Columbia) versions as well. And then people like this complain when Google tries to filter out domain squatters.
I agree that this is scummy behavior that provides no benefit to the rest of the world in order to make money for a few people. I also think these people really have no room to move when it comes to Google, but then again nobody does. However, I don't see anything inherently wrong with buying a domain and using it in any way you want. they have a right to continue doing what they are doing. If it makes them money, then who is the fool?
The look and feel of a newspaper or a greeting card is simply not something that can be duplicated by my computer. I dislike reading large articles on my computer screen, and I would much rather read them from a printed page. I know there are many others who feel the same way. And again, the handwritten card from my grandmother on my birthday is not something that can be duplicated with the computer.
No, the USPS is here to stay and as Scott mentioned the similarity to the road system, it's useful for only one entity to control it for convenience. Otherwise we wouldn't likely have boxes on nearly every corner where we can drop a letter or netflix. We wouldn't likely have the ability to pop a letter or netflix in our mailbox and expect it to be picked up M-F. The alternative is the government "regulating" what can and cannot happen so that standards are maintained. After all, particularly with roads, if you have to get somewhere you don't often have many options, or better yet, with phones/power, they are run by companies instead of the government and they are no longer regulated by the government either, yet I'm stuck with 1 local phone company and 1 local power company.
The Sony eReader may be a cool device, but there have been many attempts at similar devices and software:
Adobe Reader(prior to it's merging with Acrobat Reader; not PDF based)
RCA eBookman
Microsoft Reader(PC and PDA software)
Palm Reader, and etc.
Problem is, none of them caught on. They were difficult to read, drank a lot of battery life if they were on PDA's, and were prone to crash. I should know. I used Microsoft Reader on an old Dell Axim X5 (first gen: 2002). I prefer paper books to this day.
Sony's eReader is a big improvement, but I don't think it will catch on in the long run.
There aren't a lot of non-geeks who like reading on a computer screen. It is an aesthetic thing, not one of practicality.