Article by article, how Big Tech shaped the EU's roll-back of digital rights

Re:Article by article, how Big Tech shaped the EU's roll-bac... by PaulRobinson on Monday January 19, 2026 @09:23AM (#46679271)

That just means they have all the infrastructure they need to bottle syrup from another source and start selling that instead - no capex needed, just maybe need to get together with other franchisees and figure out how to spend some opex on marketing and getting it onto store shelves. Coca-cola has a moat, but it's hardly protective of franchisees here.

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Re:Article by article, how Big Tech shaped the EU's roll-bac... by blell on Monday January 19, 2026 @09:25AM (#46679301)

There must be thousands of soda manufacturers in Europe. I can buy dozens of sodas where I live. But they are not Coca Cola.

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Re:Article by article, how Big Tech shaped the EU's roll-bac... by anilgulecha on Monday January 19, 2026 @09:36AM (#46679436)

From a recent hn discussion there's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc

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Re:Article by article, how Big Tech shaped the EU's roll-bac... by immibis on Monday January 19, 2026 @11:40AM (#46681050)

They are bottled at the same places that bottle Coca-Cola. If those places stop paying for their Coca-Cola brand license because nobody is buying it... then okay? so what?

Or, now that someone's reverse-engineered the Coca-Cola formula and everyone's saying we need to stop pandering to USA IP rights, governments have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever. I think Russia already did.

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Re:Article by article, how Big Tech shaped the EU's roll-bac... by wpm on Monday January 19, 2026 @09:39AM (#46679482)

Someone just used gas chromatography to develop a seemingly passable knock off of the unpatented Coca Cola formula and posted it online. https://youtu.be/TDkH3EbWTYc

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Re:Article by article, how Big Tech shaped the EU's roll-bac... by amarcheschi on Monday January 19, 2026 @09:59AM (#46679730)

I firmly believe that such thing is already know by companies...

In the niche perfumes hobby, you have small brands doing that or people paying for gcms analysis on perfumes, i guess that companies have already done that on coke for decades

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Re:Article by article, how Big Tech shaped the EU's roll-bac... by hyperman1 on Monday January 19, 2026 @01:07PM (#46682402)

I always assumed this to be marketing, as reversing the formula has been easy since the '90s. I know someone with acces to a university lab, and he reverses and recreates popular tastes as a hobby. Also, in double blind taste tests, pepsi tends to win from Coca.

Their real genius was always marketing, associating sugar water with freedom, free time, summer AND christmas, ... Not to look down on them, good marketing is both very hard and very powerfull.

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