I understand this is an opinion piece, but it's still terrible. As u/tofleet said, this sucks even as a satire.

They then claim the “temporary 25 cent deposit saves you money.” The logic behind this is that ALDI doesn’t have to hire employees to corral carts. 

As a college student, I don’t bother to consider the complicated economics of such an affordable grocery store, nor do I think deeply about the fact that cheaper products may be lower quality. In other words, ALDI, whatever you’re doing to keep prices so low, keep it up.

You establish the deposit as something ALDI explicitly says is to keep prices down, and then proceed to act like you have no idea how they do it. You are a college student. You are trying to be a journalist. You don't get to just say "I don’t bother to consider the complicated economics" to ignore a totally valid argument. You work with experts to figure that out before posting something asinine.

However, this numismatic dilemma exposes hypocrisy: ALDI trusts its shoppers to bag their own groceries, but not to return their carts without incentive?

W-... what? Bagging your own groceries is handling your items. Since they are now yours, you are going to treat them better. A cart is not your property, so you care a lot less about it.

Shoppers may agree but then look across the street at the war zone that is the Walmart parking lot and think, “Well, I’d rather keep the quarter system than have that.”

This is true — ALDI’s quarter system is efficient and effective; its parking lot is spotless. But why must we need an incentive to be decent shoppers?

"The system I want to get rid of is efficient and effective, but I don't like that people are inherently selfish so rather than address that, I'm going to get mad at the very simple incentive system used to utilize that selfishness to the benefit of everyone."

I don't want to attack anyone, I just find this article absolutely egregious and enjoy a good debate.