The article doesn't mention one important historical factor. For years, Amazon was fighting to not collect taxes until more and more states started passing laws saying online retailers must collect sales tax at the behest of B&M merchants. Rather than fight a losing battle, they decided to beat those merchants at their own game: "Fine, you want us to collect sales tax? We'll build warehouses everywhere and have same day delivery instead of having warehouses in only a couple of states."

I live in NY where Amazon already collects sales tax so it doesn't really matter to me.