New Blogger Tax

This story is interesting. Due to lobbying by mainstream media corporations, the FCC is contemplating a "Blogger Tax". There will be a tax on Internet advertising. The proceeds of the tax will be used to subsidize mainstream media corporations. Other proposals include a tax on cell phones and ISPs and webhosting vendors.

This is very offensive. State parasites would love to cripple and censor the Internet. The Internet threatens the State mainstream media information monopoly.

The same legal principle that allows a 5% tax also allows a 99% tax or a 10000% tax. By imposing high enough taxes, it would be declared illegal to operate a for-profit Internet business.

The law seems to be targeting websites like Digg and Reddit. One proposal is a "link tax", where a website has to pay a tax whenever they link to a mainstream media corporations' website. That shows a lack of understanding about how the Internet works. I never understood why mainstream media executives get offended when someone links to their website. I guess they want people to read all the news in the order they choose, rather than people just reading stuff that interests them.

The mainstream media has been surprisingly quiet about this proposed tax. That's unsurprising, considering they're the ones lobbying for it. That is evidence of their corruption.

The mainstream media is losing market share for several reasons.

First, a website is updated continuously all day, while a newspaper is only updated once per day. On the Internet, instead of waiting for the scheduled news time, you can read what interests you in the order you choose.

Second, the Internet offers more depth. The mainstream media necessarily covers many topics superficially. If you want detailed discussion of a subject, it's best to go to a website targeting that subject.

Finally, and most importantly, the mainstream media has a credibility problem. Most "news" stories are State press releases repackaged as original reporting. Corporate press releases are also treated as news. For example, coverage of a hot new drug is an advertisement disguised as news.

The mainstream media never has a serious discussion of "Taxation is theft! The USA has a corrupt monetary system! Government is one huge criminal conspiracy!" The Internet is enabling people to bypass State censorship and discover the truth. It's a slow process, but the progress is noticeable. State parasites know that their information monopoly is ending and that their scam is ending. This really scares them.

A year or two ago, some websites had one person saying "Taxation is theft!" while everyone else denounced him as a crank. Now, several different people are arguing "Taxation is theft!" There still are pro-State trolls, but their majority is shrinking.

Hopefully, the "Blogger Tax" won't pass. The only ones lobbying for it are mainstream media corporations. It's obviously ethically problematic, when the State subsidizes media. Corporations like Google should be able to successfully lobby against this obviously stupid law.

Large mainstream media corporations already receive massive State subsidies. Most of them have a lot of debt on their books, which is at a negative real interest rate. Despite this massive State subsidy and all the advantages the economic system gives to incumbent businesses, mainstream media corporations are losing market share to the Internet. One nice thing about the Internet is that there's very few barriers to entry for starting a new business. I'm only making a few dollars per month from Adbrite, which shows that you still need a lot of readers to have a viable business. I'm going to try other things soon/eventually.