It wasn't a stupid idea, it was just an especially shameless lie. We all knew it was bullshit; Amazon must have also known it. But they bullshitted their way

It wasn't a stupid idea, it was just an especially shameless lie. We all knew it was bullshit; Amazon must have also known it. But they bullshitted their way to an astonishing degree of news coverage. Probably a majority of local news channels covered it, as did almost all the major newspapers. Like many of you here probably were, I was asked about it by all sorts of nontechnical friends / relatives / strangers who just found out I do software and robotics / etc. I personally am not hoping everyone will forget; I'm hoping they will remember me saying "Oh, no, that's bullshit — it's just a money-losing marketing stunt, not something that they will actually start doing."