Most people think of Intuit as the company that helps them to deal with government bullshit and they are happy to pay for that.

The average consumer doesn't know that Intuit has a gross business model that is entirely based on the idea of deliberately keeping bureaucracy alive. They think the exact opposite.

They believe Intuit is giving them a solution to deal with the government's outdated and overly-complex tax filing system. And unsurpisingly the government has no issues with being the escape goat on this one, because the way you pay your taxes will never be as politically contentious as determining who gets to pay taxes and how much they pay.

Anyone else still waiting on their 2020 refund?

And yet I don't see any real backlash against Grover Norquist's "no new taxes" pledge being applied to "making filing easier / automatic" - which is in my mind a prerequisite to any real improvement on the filing process since essentially half of the government at any given time has only been allowed to be elected because they promised not to improve things.

You still hear people saying "if you're not paying for the service, you're the product" as if they're enlightening people, so <shrug>.