I agree with the legislator. Let's remove all those unfair sales taxes the brick-and-morter companies have to collect from their customers. Let's do it right away.

And public school is so "functional" with such mature "socializing" going on?

For $300 dollars you could buy the same machine used OR you could buy a new battery. I haven't found buying new batteries for 2 year old (or more) laptops to be compelling over the last 10 years. (NOTE: Prices not exact and may not be quoted. For comparison purposes only.)

And what percentage of the car audio player market? And what percentage of the home stereo market? And what percentage of the DVD player market and ... There is more to audio than the portable player market.

Sounds like a car rental company's pricing. Run a big optimization program in the background. Add a little human intervention in case it makes stupid pricing choices now and then. Some cool code watches how things are selling and, eventually, the prices change based on your IP address, time of day, things you have bought recently and at what prices, gender and how fast you type or click or read. Sounds like an MBA's dream come true.

I think the change, in part, is due to the fact that with CD and advances in amplifier and speaker technology the default fidelity setting is "high enough" for most people. I still cringe when I actually listen to a set of Bose or B&W speakers in a quiet setting. So ... when you have all that road noise in your car AM radio is good enough if the station is close. When you want to walk around and listen to music AND don't have any cash, the ear buds are good enough. When your goal is to impress your peers, rumbling and shaking and blinking lights is good enough. And ... drum roll ... when you are at home the default CD player is good enough.

I noticed a problem back in the 90's when I started getting MSDN subscriptions on CD. There were all these technical articles on the CDs and I could go look at the old ones and find stuff to fix old programs that still used "outdated" technology.
Then, things improved and we could look up all that stuff on the web and I found that, now and then, the stuff on the web would change. The archives were "corrected" to put in the current spin to whatever bug the old article was talking about. Then the old articles started disappearing. (I suppose disk space just got too expensive to keep all that old stuff.)
If you keep the old articles on paper, they don't ever change. If you keep them on removable media like CD they don't ever change (but you might not be able to read them when you upgrade your hardware). If you expect someone else to keep them on the web, good luck. (Plus you don't ever know they changed unless you have a photographic memory. Mine's more of a paraplegic memory.)

I hadn't noticed that paper magazines were that useful after getting rained on or dropped in the tub (or wherever). A little water is ok but not a lot. Of course the replacement cost is higher with electronics.

Perhaps good(?) lawyers are easier to find than good developers.