I disagree, it's woeful ignorance (and sometimes even willful).
When Amazon and all first came out they didn't charge sales taxes and states were pretty unhappy because largely nobody was paying the sales taxes they were supposed to on their tax returns.
Maybe I just have low standards like "never click the link from the Nigerian prince who needs assistance moving funds", but this again seems like a "they never encounter it so why would they know it" situation, judged harshly because of fundamental attribution error. [0]
* Most Americans have no other encounters with "use taxes" in their day-to-day lives.
* It's natural to assume the vendor (or new Internet Computer Thing) is continuing to handle it, especially when that's how all their regular purchases work.
* The tax functionally didn't exist for many decades, at least when the retailer had no in-state presence.
> states [...] tax returns
22.7% of Americans in states without income tax: "The what?" :p
When Amazon and all first came out they didn't charge sales taxes and states were pretty unhappy because largely nobody was paying the sales taxes they were supposed to on their tax returns.