“As someone who lives near a Best Buy, I’m at Best Buy often,” Newsom told reporters during a news conference. “And I’m paying sales tax on a lot of this prewritten software. And then I find out that all my friends that aren’t near a Best Buy, they’re downloading and they are not paying sales tax. How is that fair?”
I agree, its not fair, let’s just remove the sales tax, k? 👍
Also pretty sure no one is buying software from Best Buy in 2026, that would be dumb as hell.
this is just reclassifying ‘digital’ software as taxable. the same as software on physical media already is in california. some states have a similar tax status for these products.
many states already did the same with digital video and streaming.
I think their point may be more thay sales taxes are regressive- they disproportionately impact people with less money, as those people need to spend all or most of what they have for necessities, while folks with a large surplus of wealth or income only need to spend a small portion and much of it can go towards savings or investments
I dont think its unreasonable for someone to say they’d rather just do away with sales tax altogether. We may have more appropriate tools with which to fund the government
Let me know when your friendly neighborhood FOSS developer creates a CRM or accounting software that doesn’t cost me more in time to get running and figure out how to use than the paid options.
Your IT department likely just selects some random vendor that doesn’t really give a shit and puts all your data beyond some bullshit cloud service anyways. That they probably cobbled together from github anyways.
Did you not read? Those are established for-profit companies who also happen to release open-source versions of their stack. They also have hosted cloud versions.
You’re just backing away because you’ve been pointed out to be wrong in your sarcastic bullshit, buddy. Just walk away.
Sales taxes are regressive. The poorest people pay way more of their income to buy things at stores. Therefore they are getting taxed a lot more than someone who saves money because they have bigger incomes
I agree, its not fair, let’s just remove the sales tax, k? 👍
Also pretty sure no one is buying software from Best Buy in 2026, that would be dumb as hell.
Also I fucking doubt Newsome been anywhere near a Best Buy much less bought software from there.
this is just reclassifying ‘digital’ software as taxable. the same as software on physical media already is in california. some states have a similar tax status for these products.
many states already did the same with digital video and streaming.
i don’t really see a problem with it.
I think their point may be more thay sales taxes are regressive- they disproportionately impact people with less money, as those people need to spend all or most of what they have for necessities, while folks with a large surplus of wealth or income only need to spend a small portion and much of it can go towards savings or investments
I dont think its unreasonable for someone to say they’d rather just do away with sales tax altogether. We may have more appropriate tools with which to fund the government
Yes, I also read the article.
You all are buying software? I just donate to my friendly neighborhood FOSS Developer.
How else would I get this year’s version of Macaffe Antivirus!
You could always try clicking on some shady links online.
Let me know when your friendly neighborhood FOSS developer creates a CRM or accounting software that doesn’t cost me more in time to get running and figure out how to use than the paid options.
CRM: https://github.com/twentyhq/twenty
Accounting: https://github.com/bigcapitalhq/bigcapital
Yeah I didn’t say “when they exist”.
These are also not “free as in beer”.
Also your Big Capital has a .Claude file at the top of it and likewise Twenty has .cursor so LOLOLOL no thanks
I’m not saying these are plug and play, but they are quite literally free as in beer.
AI is definitely problematic. But if you think your paid for software doesn’t use AI in it in the present day, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
Yeah, our IT department will definitely replace our CRM and Accounting software with some random GitHub projects.
Thanks!
Your IT department likely just selects some random vendor that doesn’t really give a shit and puts all your data beyond some bullshit cloud service anyways. That they probably cobbled together from github anyways.
Stop shifting the goal post
Did you not read? Those are established for-profit companies who also happen to release open-source versions of their stack. They also have hosted cloud versions.
You’re just backing away because you’ve been pointed out to be wrong in your sarcastic bullshit, buddy. Just walk away.
Why are you against a sales tax?
Sales taxes are regressive. The poorest people pay way more of their income to buy things at stores. Therefore they are getting taxed a lot more than someone who saves money because they have bigger incomes
That actually makes sense, thank you
People who downvote someone asking a question is insane. Gods forbid you want to learn something or engage in a dialogue.
Same reasons I’m against most taxes.
How dare the government raise money to fund useless things, like infrastructure, education or social services, right?