[tremon]

What if abandoning entire cartons of merchandise, and then shipping replacements, just has plain-old higher ROI for Amazon

What if killing the natives just has plain-old higher ROI for an oil company than trying to work with them? What if operating an illegal taxi business just has plain-old higher ROI than following the laws in place? What if kneecapping the competition just has plain-old higher ROI for an ice skater?

[derefr]

Those things are negative externalities. In this case, apartment buildings are receiving e.g. a carton of free new laptops that they could sell or donate. Yes, in some sense it's "littering", but it's not littering of valueless trash that costs more than it's worth to dispose of. It costs Amazon more than it's worth, but to pretty much any regular human being, it's like Amazon "littered" a stack of $20 bills in their apartment lobby.

And, because this stuff has value, it will very likely all get reused (i.e. resold or donated into the secondary market), not thrown away. Which will satisfy some of the demand for the products Amazon is selling, replacing an order someone would have made for a new product. Which means this act doesn't even have any externalities for the environment—nothing is going to landfill that otherwise wouldn't.

So I honestly don't get your comparison.

[aembleton]

Then killing natives, running illegal taxi businesses and kneecapping will happen.

If the government doesn't like it, then provide sufficient incentive not to do it.

[Applejinx]

What if killing senators and representatives offers higher ROI than complying with laws (or bribing the senators more than other companies are bribing them)?

Amazon's not the first one I'd look at for this, but still. At some point you have to look at how things actually function. Not unlike critical theory. You ask, 'this is the rule, what's it like in practice though?'