Quantum mechanics is often described as irreducibly non-local. A tacit element of this picture is the assumption that one and the same sub-ensemble of quanta is post-selected in every measurement combination of a Bell test. Yet, this expectation was recently shown to be formally inconsistent with quantum theory (Cetto et al., 2020) and even to be experimentally falsifiable (Mardari 2021). The need to make sense of this development motivated a rigorous conceptual analysis of quantum non-locality, especially as it relates to the basic principles of quantum mechanics. The simple conclusion is that quantum theory and quantum non-locality are fundamentally incompatible. This is not a loophole around the predictions of quantum mechanics, but rather an insight into the essential conditions that make them accurate.