ambivalent comment

This phenomenon exists in a legal world minature version, too: The clinic I work in has two good-sized offices crammed pretty much floor to cieling with obsolete computer equipment -- CPUs, monitors, keyboards, mice, and more -- that have been “donated” by big firms in the city. Most of these “generous” donations are obsolete and barely-functional crap the day they arrive at the clinic, and then it becomes the clinic's responsibility to figure out how to dispose of the junk. I guess the clinic accepts these donations b/c it usually gets a couple of usable machines out of the deal and it also has learned to salvage certain parts (e.g. network cards) that can be used in other machines or sold on ebay or whatever.