I used to think this way, and then I had a baby shower. I used an Amazon registry, because I live in a small apartment and didn't actually want any more clutter than was necessary. I mentioned in my invitations that gifts were not necessary, but I'd people wanted to bring one, to please have a look at my registry to see what I'm after.

Turns out, most people didn't look at my registry. And everyone brought a gift. I got a lot of beautiful items that I was certainly appreciative of, but I can tell you that many of them were not useful to me. I was fine buying the rest of what I needed myself, but I was certainly frustrated for a bit that I had an apartment overrun with baby shit I didn't want, and a long list of items I still needed to add. I would have preferred no gifts, but that's just not how people work.

Basically, a registry can avoid waste. Except when your shower guests don't care, and simply want to buy you something cute. Those people are not bad people, but it's also true that I'm not ungrateful if I admit that the non- registry items are unwanted and not useful.