What happens to me is I have it in a dispenser where it holds the part out after the cutter, which works 90% of the time. Then occasionally I fumble it, knocking it off the placeholder and it ends up flat.

Maybe I should just pull a little extra out and fold it....

Beat me to it. It was a trick I learned online from a professional gaffer showing how he puts tabs on all of his tape. The second best option for if you don't want to waste tape or have these tags on everything you tape is to use the plastic or paper tabs they use on bread and when you finish off the tape leave a little extra and then stick the bread tabs to it because then you can just peal off the tabs and the tape will be still sticky.

That's all well and good until you live with other people.

Not that this isn’t objectively correct, it is. And yet..

I live alone, nobody messes with my tape. AND YET, whenever I need tape, no matter how hard I struge to always leave my tape in good condition, SOMEHOW the fay or gremlins always get at it and mess it up. Always. And so I spend time and energy to … goddamnit it ripped again!

One time, the fold-over section just flat-out disintegrated. I mean.. I try. Really really I try.

Amen.

I hate when my tape thinks too much

I used to have some 3M shit from the 80s. It was duct tape but on steroids. A visibly thick layer of adhesive, roughly cut fabric base with some of that military green vinyl coating. Everyone called it EB green because it was mostly from Electric Boat in Connecticut. After like 5 years that thing was just a semi round blob of carpet, sheetrock paper and basically anything else it touched in it's life. Skin would lose to this shit quite often. It became one with itself and everything it came in contact with.

The post office somehow sells the best clear tape in my country

I've never seen that, could be true for some brands but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Most brands on a fresh roll would have a tab on the end of the tape anyway, after one use any marking on the inside of the roll wouldn't line up with the new end.