As someone currently using a swamp cooler in a desert climate with daily temps around 40C, that statement is absolutely misleading!
A more accurate statement could be that they cycle 125-550L of water a day, but aside from what’s evaporated, it’s basically a closed-loop system, with very little water waste or loss.
evaporative coolers are very common in desert climates in the US. they work really great up to about 60% humidity and cost less than 10% to operate compared to ‘regular’ AC. they use little power (can easily be solar powered), and do not pollute.
i have both an evaporative cooler and an AC unit and have rarely felt the need to use the AC - the evap works exceedingly well for keeping the temps tolerable.
the only real downside is that it’s not just push a button and all your problems are solved. you need airflow. usually these things are mounted where the output vents into a central hallway or room, and you direct the flow of cool air by opening windows or doors - the path between the cooler vent and the open “exhaust” to the outside is what stays the coolest. Opening the whole house requires turning the evap cooler’s fan to a higher speed, but that’s so wasteful and we’re not ever using the whole house at once. i also turn it off when there’s a thunderstorm (because obviously the humidity spike makes this useless). It also doesn’t get used in the winter - it gets a canvas cover and some padding to seal off the air gaps so the house doesn’t get too cold and drafty.
it’s clear there’s a lot of people here who haven’t ever used or even seen this type of cooler, but i assure you this is common, and probably the most cost-effective summer cooling.
i feel like it’s important to note that this is against the ebay seller agreement, and though ebay does nothing about it if you report it after the fact, leaving feedback with a statement like “this seller drop shipped the item via amazon” helps other shoppers.
generally, though, it’s getting easier to tell: higher volume (we’re talking 1k or higher, usually) of feedback with less than ~97% positive feedback, is a good first indication of some kind of reseller/dropshipper.
personally, i started shopping on ebay to avoid amazon, so it’s a supreme annoyance to have something drop-shipped or gift-shipped through them. I get why some sellers do it, but that doesn’t make it right.