Exactly. Of course these costs are passed on to the customer. All you've accomplished is setting a near-impossible barrier to entry in the market, ensuring that you'll have a oligopoly. If you want to get tax money off cell phone customers, tax cell phones. If you want to get tax money period, then increase general tax levels.

'Immaculate conception' has nothing to do with virgin birth. It refers to one of the dogmas of the catholic church, that the virgin Mary was conceived (by her parents) without original sin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_conception

Each of these switches is probably smaller than any particle shedded by normal wear-and-tear, and also smaller than the surface features that the whole concept of friction is based on.

Actually, friction increases with decreasing size. For nano-sized particles friction is one of the dominant effects and often cause microelectromechanical devices to fail due to "stiction"; one piece of the machinery semi-permanently sticking to another due to van-der-Waals forces.