The most simple explanation is usually correct
In most contexts, yes.
and never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, lol.
The problem with that rule is most malicious people are well aware of it, making the appearance of stupidity a tool to free them from accountability. Look at politics - we (collectively) give Trump the village idiot pass, ogling at someone could be so stupid as to blunder their way into the absolute worst economic, tactical, social, etc outcome possible. He’s not an outlier in that behavior, and corporate reps / CEOs often do the same shit.
I don’t have the insider knowledge to say with certainty that any one instance is an example or not, but I definitely reject the whole ‘never attribute to malice’ spiel.
jmill@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Yeah, modern politics and big corporations can’t be adequately explained by stupidity though. At a certain point malice and greed are the only plausible explanations.
In this situation with D Brand, stupidity does seem adequate. It’s a lot of stupidity, but definitely not an unbelievable amount, especially since they’ve been doing similar things without it really biting them in the ass until now.
Although, I guess whether or not it is just a PR stunt there was a certain amount of shadiness happening. Either directed at the public if it was, or intending to make unlicensed profit off of Valve’s IP if it wasn’t.