Hungary to impose world’s first internet tax
Hungary is preparing to impose the world’s first tax on internet usage .. which include a charge of Ft150 (62 U.S. cents [40p]) for each gigabyte of internet data consumed. Mr Varga [economy minister] said the tax – to be paid by internet service providers – was a logical extension of levies on phone calls and text messages the government announced in 2011.
Hungarians stage Budapest protest against internet tax
In response, the ruling Fidesz party said it would submit an amendment to the law ensuring that monthly payments of the tax were capped at 700 forints.
Although we all pay an internet tax (by way of VAT on our telecoms bill), this is particularly despicable. Presumably this fee is on top of the taxes already levied.
It seems the charge applies also to data uploaded, not just downloaded.
Part of the problem is from webpages being overloaded with garbage for a ‘prettier experience’: the average ebay page is approaching 2MB, and they’re not alone. Much is to do with ‘needing’ oversized, high resolution images to cater for the higher resolution screens, and the fashion for more and more visual effects and features being being managed browser-side (cf. traditional ‘server-side’ intelligence).
Dont get me started on the CO2 footprint for all these ‘superfluous’ bits being transported 😉
Often it’s worth using the mobile site instead, for a more efficient service. Maybe its time for a ‘download accelerator’ service, akin to Opera’s turbo ‘on the road’ option. I suspect that when people complain about how ‘slow their computer is’, in fact it has little to do with their computer and more to do with the amount they are having to download, with the subsequent extra processing necessary.
[I am aware CDNs, for example, reduce the real weight of each page as you explore the site, but that doesn’t change the original situation so much]
Add the imposition of certain OSes that demand you download all your updates & upgrades, as well as software only available by download, and you have the recipe to create many thousand computers running obsolete (may I say ‘poor quality’ or ‘bloated’) software with the issues this presents.
Extending the point about forcing these massive downloads, it is worth remembering not everyone on the planet has access to lovely broadband. Even in the UK, many people still have to rely on expensive dial-up modem services, or not much cheaper mobile connections.