Net taxes would hurt evolution of e-books
“State and local access fees could add 20 percent to 25 percent to the average Internet consumer’s bill–a tax hike of about $150 per year.” - Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The TeleRead take: I’d side with Armey on this one. E-books and learning in general will benefit from “always on” connections of the kind that broadband and Wi-Fi will encourage. Imagine a mix of Wi-Fi and e-books with interbook links and no downloading-speed issues for multimedia e-books.
Simply put, the last thing society needs is for governments to make it more expensive to connect in an up-to-date way. For that and a variety of other reasons, the tax ban should remain. Hmm. You think that the Open eBook Forum would actually care about this? Many groups are at work against Net taxes, but every little bit should help, especially when it involves books and education. Click here to support a moratorium on Net taxes.
As for ways to pay for rural connections, I can think of a zillion and one other possibilities if techno-evolution alone won’t do the trick by lowering costs.
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