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So I begrudgingly added a spoon of peanut butter to some regular oatmeal today. Tasted great. You win this round.

The article is moronic (and, more specifically, Thomas Panke is a moron). One of the main examples given is the 'Ferrari', which is clearly an unlicensed knock-off. The only reason it still exists is because the pissant company is too small to be noticed by Ferrari. It's no wonder Lego costs more if they actually licence their IP. This is not some 'similar' or 'evocative' product - it is quite clearly a Ferrari 488 with the badges removed. This is so obvious that it's even listed as such on the websites where it can be purchased. Trying to compare this obvious trademark infringement with generic vehicle builds is risible. The mental gymnastics required to make this false equivalence could win the Olympics.

Since this discussion has happened in two different places already, we're not going to keep rehashing it. The link at the start of this thread appears in the Alternate Brands thread.

Frustration free packaging really different from standard on tantive: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NDYHY8S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

No offense, but you might wanna stop posting about him, as I'm sure no one truly cares about him on a LEGO related forum. At least I don't care. Someone who is trying so hard to discredit a brand that made him what he is today is a hypocrite in my eyes. Practising what you preach is not his strength exactly. Complaining about big retailers selling LEGO, therefore killing small businesses & simultaneously listing Amazon links for LEGO products in his description is ridiculous. I think it would be best to just drop this discussion. You have hundreds of thousands of like-minded people/fanboys in his comment section, I suggest you discuss it there.

They weren’t free? N00b ....

Just thinking back to $.30 battle pack delivery day.

I don't think this would destroy Lego as a company. The other companies would still not be allowed to call their product Lego, the same way CVS can't call their tissues Kleenex. What would change is that you could legally make a YouTube video where you call BB or Cobi bricks "lego bricks" instead of "interlocking bricks". What might destroy Lego as a company is lower production quality or boring sets. I have to say that in the kids market, most sets from last few years have not impressed. If I look at the current police station, it's as good as the last one. The same for some of the licensed sets. But Lego has always gone through cycles, so I'm hoping they will get better again.

Just putting this out there.

Dude, just let this go man....no need to keep making topics and topics about this subject. You hate Lego, you love alternative brick brands, and Lego is evil incarnate and will go down in a fiery flame and cease to exist....

I'm still holding out hope that this GWP will appear for North America. Double stack with March promos!

You can add Peanut Butter to this https://www.quakeroats.com/products/hot-cereals/protein/banana-nut

Had to pay above $.02 for the $10 coupon to kick in.

This may be mentioned in some of the videos already posted but I watched a LAN member video who claims these figures will be available in Fortnite. Also, he points out that duplicates can’t be played in the game. So this may help but is unverified.

I agree in the short term. Long term, who knows. But most (all?) of us have don't have that long of a hold period. My reading of the situation is as follows: 1. Lego is growing in the adult market and is earning a lot of money there, so that's the market they are trying to protect in the fight with BB. 2. In the adult market, most of their sets are quite easy to build and are not what some of the more serious builders want. They are frustrated and are looking at alternatives. I think that group is not that big but very vocal. The usual internet comment section. 3. In Germany, Lego is reacting quite clumsily to that situation. Instead of ignoring the comment section and small producers and throwing the serious builders a few bones with more challenging builds, they are fighting in court. Which never looks good. But if Lego learns from that mistake, nothing will come from it. If not, they'll loose market share in a lucrative market and it might affect our returns. But that's not imminent at all, so as an investor, I'm not sweating it. In principle, the market is big enough to have Lego as the big name selling relatively simple (licensed) adult sets and BB and co selling more advanced builds. It would eat into Lego's profits but not in a way to destroy the company (or our chances to make money of the right sets). If I were a Lego owner, what would worry me more is that in the kids market their product isn't that good any more. Of course, that's just my opinion, but I think plenty of parents agree. Otherwise why would they buy an old police station for almost double MSRP when a new one is available? And there are plenty of other examples. Of course, this is good for us as resellers but it will kill the lucrative adult market in 20-30 years when today's kids won't buy $200 sets (or $50 sets for their kids).

First. These lawsuits are nothing new. LEGO did similar thing in the US back when Friends line was introduced. IIRC the lawsuit was vs Hasbro, but don't quote me on that Second. LEGO needs to protect their name / brand or risk losing the ability to protect it in the future. That is part of the lawsuit as quoted by your newspaper article above Third. Yes we get it. LEGO sued alternative brick brands Fourth. This is just for interest of full disclosure. How much money do you have invested in the alternative bricks? Are you one of the distributors or manufacturers of these alternative brands? Usually anyone with so much passion covering these matters have some kind of financial interest in them.

Mix a spoon of peanut butter to a bowl of plain oatmeal and put banana slices on top??? Or buy them from @marcandre for 400% MSRP

Hmm my Walmart here has 5 boxes for pickup. Maybe I can flip on ebay $40 a box. RARE RETIRING OATMEAL.

Last March, when stores were running low, I had to pick up "stuff" that I don't normally buy. Nothing unusual, but what I mean is, if I usually bought Brand A of Beans, and it was picked clean, I'd buy Brand B. So we were running low of instant oatmeal. I'm not a big fan of it, but I have one or two flavors that I'll eat. Of course, all of my flavors were gone. So I grabbed a box of Quaker Peanut Butter & Banana instant oatmeal. It's been sitting in our pantry for almost a year, because I just really didn't want to touch the stuff. But push came to shove a couple weeks back, and I ended up trying it. And damnit, I love it. Well, of course, now I'm looking for it (because I'm out), and I can't find it anywhere. Near as I can tell from the Quaker site, they're not even making it anymore. I should go check Dollar Tree or Big Lots at this point, I guess.

I picked up a couple at Meijer today for $41 a piece.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/promotion/landingpage/A289WJ39BFS9KN?ie=UTF8&ref_=plp_pc_rd_A289WJ39BFS9KN

I just went through my own list, and here are my stats: 137 different products produced 4 announced, not yet on sale (Goldfish & Fry, Budgie & Chick) 1 cancelled (TRU Geoffrey) 2 NYCC (Boba Fett & Han Solo in Carbonite) 6 rumored (2 Minions, 2 Disney, 2 Harry Potter) 8 SDCC Exclusives, unnumbered (Superman & Wonder Woman, Batman & Joker, Iron Man & Captain America, Black Panther & Doctor Strange) 6 limited edition/store openings (Nonnie - LEGO Factory Inside Tour, Shimao Store Opening, Beijing Store Opening, Cologne Store Opening, Amsterdam Store Opening, Hangzou Store Opening) 1 TRU build-and-take (Wonder Woman) 3 unnumbered retail sets (Go Brick Me, Bride, Groom) Numbers 104-109 have not be used. They are probably the 6 rumored sets above. 6 sets are limited edition (SDCC or NYCC) sets that did get numbers (Supergirl & Martian Manhunter, Spider-Man & Venom, Boba Fett & Han Solo in Carbonite) I'm going to guess they're going on what's in the pipeline that is numbered, and not counting anything else. At least, that's my hope. In which case we've got at least 25 in the pipeline. But actually 31, since 6 of those are not "official" yet (104-109).

I think the TLG should start LegoTV. I mean, with todays age, I cant believe they haven't yet. I was brainstorming this the other night. They could migrate all the media they have and concentrate in one place. Would also be a perfect place you could upload and share your vidiyo. But more importantly, I was thinking they should start creative teams (like Netflix, Amazon, etc did) for original shows based off different themes. Since ive been on a 90sSpace kick, Ive been thinking about how you could storyline all the different factions, backgrounds, character building and even have them interact. But this could also be done with Castle, Pirates, Bionicle. Could be a huge cash cow.

I found this part very interesting: "The classic Italian sports car without an appealing box and without printed assembly instructions costs 39.95 euros (as of February 18, 2021). For this you get 902 parts. If I compare that with the LEGO 10248 Ferrari F40 from 2015, I find that a lot of money. The LEGO Ferrari cost 89.99 euros at the time, had over 250 more parts, a reasonable box and printed instructions." so my take-away is that it would have costed very similar to LEGO if Blubrixx had paid to use the name "Ferrari" and added a decent box. If not accounting for inflation which may be debatable. Everyone has their own comfort-level in terms of the amount of plagiarism they will accept; that need not be rehashed after 10 pages of it earlier.

I guess its time for: you are right. Yes you are right. Yes you are right. Yes you are right.