Socrates was unusual then and now in that he tought by asking questions encourage his students to think for themselves and discover answers on their own.

While what Khan is doing is great and praisworthy, it is not the Socratic method.

There are several good arguments for leaving the tag on ***for a limited period of time***.

(1) The tag could contain receipt information. How many times have you tried to return an item and lost the receipt?

(2) This could be used as a "gift receipt". Someone you give the clothing to could return it within a specified perioed without any paper receipt.

(3) For some product types, it could be used to store warrenty/service/product information. Imagine tagged prescription drug cases, combined with a home reader that can read out prescription details to a disabled owner.

(4) They can be used in toys. A stuffed animal with an integrated reader could detect and identify his "friends".

And many other uses.

These tags can provide signifigant savigs up to and just after the sale of products. On that alone they are justified (in a business sence) even if customers remove the tags at the time of purchase. But, they can also provide a platform for added services.

Just like you don't have to keep a paper receipt, why assume you have to keep the tag? Also, just like a paper receipt, if you loose it (or remove it) you may loose certain benefits (return/warrenty).