I don't see how this is any different from trade in programs that other ompanies run. Sonos don't have stores for users to bring their devices to so instead they just try to get the user to recycle it for them.
The only people I see losing from this are the developers. Valve or other companies can just take commission from the sale of used digital games, but the developer won't get any money from the sale of used digital games.
a couple of seconds? Isopropyl dries pretty quickly, so if it stops looking wet then its probably fine toput in, but I don't know why you'd bother in the first place if it was working fine.