More to the point people argue these genderised versions of lego are bad, and that lego shouldn't sell them, deciding to not sell a product because of that and not consumer demand is an example of how a company can decide for its consumers.
I don't see why the genderised versions are bad. My daughter is all for pink and princesses, something we have never (knowingly) encouraged. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't build legos at all if it weren't for the pink pieces, and the princesses! Now she builds and has learned that she enjoys the actual building process, not just playing with the creation afterwards. To me this is far more important than the way the minifigures look or whether or not it promotes gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes are much more likely picked up from how ones parents behave than from toys. If it weren't for Lego Friends I'm pretty confident she would be playing with Barbies instead and that is worse in regards to all the bad things that can be said about Lego Friends, never mind the fact that Barbies lack the creative outlet that is the very foundation of Lego.
I'm pretty confident if it weren't for the Lego Friends series, there would be a lot of girls never learning that they enjoy the building process. Which would be a great shame. If girls learn building legos can be fun, then they might learn that CS can be fun as well :).
Still, you can only buy something else within the range of options on the market.
Ideally companies adjust their product lines based on customer demand. In reality it's mostly determined by other factors like supply chain, internal politics, competitor envy, random advice from consultants, need to meet quarterly growth goals, etc.
For example, high-fructose corn syrup has become a major ingredient of many American food products within the past 20+ years. That didn't happen because of consumer demand, and consumers don't have an easy way to vote against it.
For example, high-fructose corn syrup has become a major ingredient of many American food products within the past 20+ years. That didn't happen because of consumer demand, and consumers don't have an easy way to vote against it.
That's a pretty bad example, since that was in good part a result of the action of elected governments that have kept the price of sugar way above the market price, through tariffs, quotas and subsidies.
I suppose it's true that consumers don't have an easy way to vote against it, but it is a result of the US' "democratic" process.
Don't the scare quote you chose to use around democracy make you think that actually HFCS is a good example and that everyday people actually have very little power to change the way sugar and HFCS is regulated?
I think it's a bad example of a result of the type of factors that pavlov listed (supply chain, internal politics, competitor envy, random advice from consultants, need to meet quarterly growth goals, etc).
Legal restrictions in the marketplace are categorically different from internal company policies, and the lack of power that people have changing the former does not imply a lack of power changing or overriding the latter.
Consumers could have demanded products without corn syrup in them. It turns out they don't care.
If people did care, those other factors probably would have had to take a back seat to consumer demand. So I don't think you can say that it was irrelevant to the rise of HFCS.
(You can argue that people are ill informed and blah blah blah, but that's still them not caring enough to demand whatever it is you think they should be more informed about)
I don't understand what advertising has to do with HFCS.
Sure, Coke and Pepsi blast ads all the time, but do the arithmetic, they save a couple cents using HFCS over cane sugar. They aren't advertising to get people to accept HFCS, they are advertising to increase consumption of their sugared drinks. If there was reasonably widespread resistance to HFCS they would just switch.
