It&#x27;s a culture thing.  One of the primary motivators for the revolutionary war was sales taxes on sugar, molasses, tea, etc, from the British Empire.<p>In the early days of the US, there were no sales taxes...for 140+ consecutive years. The first sales taxes were put in place by US states as a way to deal with shrinking revenues during the Great Depression in the 1920&#x27;s.   They started with only taxing goods, not services.<p>In general, services are still taxed much less often than physical goods.  For example, most states do not tax the services of doctors, dentists, or attorneys.<p>Then, there are US states that have no state sales tax of any kind at all.  This, of course, makes sales tax appear arbitrary to people in states that do have them.<p>Edit:  On this: <i>&quot;Why not electricity or water instead and why should these exemptions apply to everyone?&quot;</i> ... my best guess is that the cat was already out of the bag there.  It&#x27;s difficult to roll back something that&#x27;s already happening in a widespread way.  This law regarding taxing internet access has been in place since 1998, before many were using the internet...ahead of any broad taxation on it.