What happened with LEGO
I don't have a problem with the price of lego, having — as a child in the 70s — saved my own pocket money to buy lego. The real criticism of lego is that it's gone from being a collection of parts that can make the thing on the cover of the box but also many interesting variations, to something that isn't very malleable.<p>First, lego no longer has a consistent color scheme, so only pieces from one genre go with other pieces of that genre.<p>Next, there's the proliferation of zany specialized parts. I remember getting a lego cargo ship as a kid (the hull was four specialized pieces — bow, stern, and two mid sections and thinking this was awful. Lego doesn't do ship sections any more but many similar things.<p>It's not a get off my lawn thing. I still love lego. But it does seem to have exchanged its DIY charm in the pursuit of merchandising.<p>That said, you can build much better looking models now — just not out of any reasonable selection of pieces.