So how useful is Data.gov anyway

As per official statistics, not many people download data from it .

Why dont they just donate the data and save taxpayers some money

http://www.data.gov/metric

Summary

Agency/Sub-Agency/Organization	Raw Datasets (high-value)	Tools (high-value)	Geodata	Total	Latest Entry	# of times downloaded within the last week*
TOTAL	3,486 (2,163)	1,071 (393)	386,429	390,986	08/24/2011	0

^* These numbers represent the number of times a user has clicked on the “XML” or “CSV” (for example) links in the Raw Data Catalogs to download datasets and user downloads of tools in the Tool Catalog available in these categories.

But apparently lots of people like it still

http://www.data.gov/metric/visitorstats/monthlyredirecttrend

More list of public data repositories-

Google http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory

DataMob http://datamob.org/datasets

Amazon http://aws.amazon.com/publicdatasets/

DataMarket http://datamarket.com/

Infochimps http://www.infochimps.com/

From SEC, the Edgar  http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html

More lists of lists

http://www.kdnuggets.com/2011/02/free-public-datasets.html

But who  gets more downloads last week than Data.gov !