Comment by Gatsky

When I was a kid, you could buy 4 or so different soft drinks, a few juices and some flavoured milks. Now, the drink fridges take up a whole wall in the store, and there are multiple waters, flavoured waters, sparkling waters, non-sugar soft drinks, the usual big brand soft drinks but with many varieties, iced teas, energy drinks of all sorts, many juice permutations, multiple coffee drinks, protein shakes, kombucha, specialised kiddy drinks… the explosion in options is quite striking. I assume this is because selling drinks is a good business, essentially reselling people their tap water for a huge margin. I also think that the gargantuan marketing expenditure of Coke and friends has deeply implanted the idea of drinking from bottles into a whole generation, and other drink makers benefit from this advertising ‘penumbra’.