Amazon Returns Have Gone to Hell

I don't know anything about this particular case, but I believe the term "black propaganda" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_propaganda) is often used for the kind of situation you have in mind.

I've often wondered about that with some online interactions. Sometimes, a "defense" of P is so poorly argued that it seems almost intentional, as if designed to provoke the well-sourced, well-argued rebuttals that almost invariably follow immediately.

Logically speaking, these rebuttals should not discredit the proposition P itself, only a particular argument for P (e.g. refuting the ontological proof of the existence of God does not thereby refute theism). But when such exchanges happen frequently enough they can give rise to the widespread impression that P has no smart, thoughful defenders, so the overall effect is similar.

I'd just go with Occam/Hanlon's razor, the author is somewhat inept (at least when it comes to Amazon returns) and wrote a piece on it because being anti-Amazon gets clicks like being anti-Walmart in the early 2010s (2000s?).

Returns are hard because in practice, 11" (or 10.5") baskets are one such item that are just sold and returned on Amazon for appearances, as the dimensions probably makes shipping cost-prohibitive, but Amazon knows that they can't just say "keep it" because then people would fake-return stuff all the time.

I don't know if I'd go quite this far, but I definitely had the same overall impression. The person set up two returns and got two QR codes, but just used the same QR code twice. That is just an inability to follow basic instructions, not an Amazon problem.

This assumes that the majority of people read past the headline.

Interesting idea, but I don't think it'd work, as most people aren't critical (sceptical) readers.

That's because you did most of the work of setting up the return at home, including putting the item back in its original packaging, packaging it for shipping, and initiating the return through the app or online. Not sure how it works where you are, but there's also an additional step of printing a shipping label where I am.

I very rarely return items, but received some DOA batteries from Amazon recently (for an Eve contact sensor - 1/2 AA batteries are a real pain to source).

I found the return process to be wildly low friction. I didn't have to print or package anything. I initiated the return, and the next day an Amazon delivery driver came to my door and I handed them the unlabelled pack of batteries.

Easy returns or more waste: sometimes both!

There is a whole industry around handling returns. They often go to the landfills anyway. Sometimes you can get a refund without having to send something back, because they can’t use it anyway.

Most clothing donations go to Africa or get dumped. Recycling can end up in landfills.

I still think it makes sense to try to reuse and recycle, but with low expectations about how much good it will do.

I also love not having prime.

They're certified to know that any effort spent on proper packaging is wasted.

Not if you want to keep vinyl LPs in them. Didn't they change the size of milk crates, way back then, for exactly that reason? To make LPs no longer fit so people wouldn't steal the crates?

The Atlantic was never a newspaper - it was always a magazine.

I'm not sure when the colloquial definition of magazine and newspaper/journalism began merging, but The Atlantic, New Yorker, and Harper's were always magazines that were critique and op-ed driven.

Here's a good article explaining the difference between newspapers, magazines, journals, and other forms of nonfiction [0]

[0] - https://libanswers.memphis.edu/faq/34544

Ian Bogost is more of an essayist than a journalist. His magnum opus is his analysis of the blue shell in Mario Kart. https://bogost.com/writing/blue-shell-discontents/