My Big Fat Rant
Leave It Alone!
Right now Amazon.com is in a fight to not just save it's self, but also to protect you from more taxes. State Governments and Big Box Stores are conspiring to crush online retailers by shoving legislation down their and our throats to make shoppers pay state tax on purchases. I'm getting sick of the onslaught of attacks that are killing the Internet in the United States. The US ranks 28th in Internet speed. We invented the Internet and we are 28th! Countries like South Korea, Japan and Sweden have average speeds of up to 20/mbps. America's average a sickly 5/mbps. Pathetic! Why? Lack of demand for more speed because of tactics by big corporations and their pocket politicians to keep you from fully utilizing the Internet. Average time to download a movie in Japan is 12 minutes, in the US it is 150 minutes. Big companies like Comcast and AT&T have cable or television interests and they don't want you to watch or buy movies online (unless it's their service) and that's why you see bandwidth caps on your Internet service. All that's bad enough but now this push to tax online sales is another nail in coffin of the US' Internet. Big box stores like Walmart and Target are behind this because they are scared that what happened to brick and mortar CD and Video stores will happen to them. They can't compete with Amazon's substantially lower prices so they are going for a below the belt punch and in the process taking more of your money and dragging the United States Technology Infrastructure even further back into the stone age. What can you do? Email your congressman and senator and tell them if they want your vote they'll fight against online taxes. Secondly boycott these big box stores. Walmart is already a horrible blight on small American business and a major violator of American workers rights. Thirdly save yourself a buck and support Amazon with your next purchase.