The AWS re:Invent conference had great and easy-to-get swag when it first started. Almost every booth was giving away some type of swag with value comparable to

The AWS re:Invent conference had great and easy-to-get swag when it first started. Almost every booth was giving away some type of swag with value comparable to a T-shirt. All you had to do was stop by the booth, and they'd gift you something, no questions asked. 10 years later, you go to any company's booth and they're making you jump through hoops, fill in forms, do quizzes and exercises and contests to get a T-shirt. Many booths are not offering anything. The only freebies are stickers and trinkets worth a few pennies. Even Amazon's own AWS hoodie, which they give out at every re:Invent conference, has decreased in quality, greatly. I remember one particular year, the hoodie was so thin and cheap that I gave it to a homeless person on the streets of Vegas. Over the course of many years at re:Invent, companies realized that the ROI on swag was extremely low, perhaps even negative.