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You seem very upset that I'm pointing out a slimy marketing tactic. It's simple - people will think these things are ice cream, because they are sold in a way

You seem very upset that I'm pointing out a slimy marketing tactic. It's simple - people will think these things are ice cream, because they are sold in a way to intentionally make them easy to mistake for ice cream with the goal of blurring the lines reducing product cost without people noticing they are getting an inferior substitute. It's similar to (but distinct from) lowering the amount of goods in a box without reducing the size of the box (shrinkflation), with a similar goal. > Maybe people sometimes do want the stuff loaded with fudge and candy bars and cake crumbles and whipped to nearly the consistency of whipped cream? You're really stuck on this - I specifically pointed out Breyers light vanilla, which is not this at all. In fact, nearly everyone served this would just call it ice cream, and evidenced in this very thread where someone stated "theres so much air whipped into ice cream these days". That's the point. > And yeah, it makes sense to stick the Breyers products next to the Breyers products. Nabisco cracker products are in a whole different aisle than Nabisco cookie products. More relevantly, Nabisco saltines are with the other brand saltines, not on the same shelf as cheeze-its. You see Kraft mayo in the mayo section, and kraft mustard in the mustard section of the condiments aisle. I think its reasonable to put Breyers ice cream in an ice cream section and Breyer's light in a frozen-desert section of the freezer aisle, and not at all obvious why they aren't. > I don't exactly see why its "the stupid shit" and makes people less human to concoct such things The people who concoct them are fine. The ones who are less than human are the ones who use tricks to fool people into thinking they are ice cream. I mean even the name in the example "Breyers Light" - most things that are "light" are the same product with less sugar or fat or salt not a wholly different thing (e.g. Bud light is still beer (cue jokes from the beer snobs)) - are another trick to lead to confusion because its no longer ice cream.

vel0city 2mo ago
> You seem very upset that I'm pointing out a slimy marketing tactic. I'm not the one calling people non-human and using terms like "the stupid shit" and assuming conspiracies that can easily be described with logically sorting like items. I'm just really trying to understand the mind of someone so angry about people enjoying different kinds of deserts and so the makers of those desires are now inhuman for sticking their frozen dairy products in the frozen dairy section. > I think its reasonable to put Breyers ice cream in an ice cream section and Breyer's light in a frozen-desert section of the freezer aisle Wouldn't that be immediately next to and surrounding the "ice cream" subsection? Like maybe novelties, frozen dairy deserts, ice cream, sorbets, that sound reasonable? Wouldn't you then logically put the brands like Breyers that make both kinds of products at the edge of the "ice cream" and the "frozen dairy desert" section? Isn't having them be the border of both sections then still the same end result you're dehumanizing people over? Should the government be required to have these products separated by 15 feet and have big flashing warning lights announcing the separation of those sections? How much separation do you require to meet your standards? Are their frozen dairy deserts really the same level is dissimilar as ketchup is to mustard? Or are they essentially just like different "flavors" of the same base concept? Personally I (and I imagine many other people) could just swap a "real ice cream" for a "frozen dairy desert" and probably not care too much, but if I put mustard in something calling for ketchup or vice-versa it's definitely not going to end up the same!
- sophacles 2mo ago
  > Personally I (and I imagine many other people) could just swap a "real ice cream" for a "frozen dairy desert" and probably not care too much This is a fun statement. It's a complete reversal of the opinion you've had most of this thread. You're just arguing semantics and don't care that ice cream is different. My point is always, and has always been that the frozen dair deserts that aren't ice cream are a way of selling less product (lower density = less actual milk, sugar, etc) at the same price, in a way that invokes the previous status quo. As for sorting: There is no ontological reason some things are sorted by brand and some things are sorted by type. It's purely marketing saying "we'll give you a slightly better deal if you keep our brand together in one big section rather than sorting on types". It's branding deals with the supermarkets - thats the only logic to it. And btw - i never called for any government regulation of anything, even the name ice cream. I never called for flashing lights. I just said it makes sense to sort things that are different categories by category instead of brand.
  - vel0city 2mo ago
    Me suggesting I probably wouldn't care too much if I sometimes got a "frozen dairy desert" instead of "ice cream" isn't a complete reversal from me saying I usually prefer basic ice cream. If I said I usually like vanilla but later I said I wouldn't mind too much if I got chocolate also be a "complete reversal"? I still usually prefer vanilla, but hey its a sweet frozen treat, I'm still pretty happy in the end. If someone said "hey want some ice cream?" and they dished out some "frozen dairy desert" I probably would be ok with it instead of acting all disgusted and call them subhuman. As for putting the same brand together, a lot of people like to shop by looking at the brand. Take your earlier example of crackers. There's a ton of varieties of Cheez-its and "cheese-flavored crackers". Should they break up all the different flavors of Cheez-its and have them all over the aisle, or would it kind of make sense to group all the different flavors and varieties of Cheez-its together so people shopping for Cheez-its can see the different flavors of Cheez-its? Seems like a pretty logical way to do things to me. Going back to ice cream, should they also have a section for only vanilla, only chocolate, only strawberry, only neapolitan, only mint chocolate chip, and have all the brands placed in those groups? Whenever a company makes a new flavor, we have to shift all these groups around to make a space for that new flavor even if they're the only entrant for that flavor. One has to hunt for the spot where Moo-llennium Crunch fits in Might as well have the brands grouped together. I'd rather see all the varieties of Blue Bell in one place as it makes it easier to find the specific items.
Gormo 2mo ago
> You seem very upset that I'm pointing out a slimy marketing tactic. I think he's objecting to you presumptively calling it a "slimy marketing tactic" to offer a product that some people clearly do enjoy and are willing to pay for, but which doesn't strictly conform to the legal definition of a specific product category, and which therefore must be labelled as something else. > It's simple - people will think these things are ice cream, Because they are within the "ice cream" category in the general vernacular sense: people are buying these products because they do satisfy their taste for ice cream. They're labelled differently because the labeling regulations are applying hard-and-fast boundaries to fuzzy-edged categories. If you want to have clear, objective rules, you need to set hard boundaries, but that always entails that there will be edge cases that people will debate about, but which will need to be settled on one side of the boundary or the other. If you're going to set technical, quantitative standards for what can be called "ice cream", some products that people regard as ice cream, and consume accordingly, will always end up falling outside that definition.

vel0city 2mo ago

> You seem very upset that I'm pointing out a slimy marketing tactic. I'm not the one calling people non-human and using terms like "the stupid shit" and assuming conspiracies that can easily be described with logically sorting like items. I'm just really trying to understand the mind of someone so angry about people enjoying different kinds of deserts and so the makers of those desires are now inhuman for sticking their frozen dairy products in the frozen dairy section. > I think its reasonable to put Breyers ice cream in an ice cream section and Breyer's light in a frozen-desert section of the freezer aisle Wouldn't that be immediately next to and surrounding the "ice cream" subsection? Like maybe novelties, frozen dairy deserts, ice cream, sorbets, that sound reasonable? Wouldn't you then logically put the brands like Breyers that make both kinds of products at the edge of the "ice cream" and the "frozen dairy desert" section? Isn't having them be the border of both sections then still the same end result you're dehumanizing people over? Should the government be required to have these products separated by 15 feet and have big flashing warning lights announcing the separation of those sections? How much separation do you require to meet your standards? Are their frozen dairy deserts really the same level is dissimilar as ketchup is to mustard? Or are they essentially just like different "flavors" of the same base concept? Personally I (and I imagine many other people) could just swap a "real ice cream" for a "frozen dairy desert" and probably not care too much, but if I put mustard in something calling for ketchup or vice-versa it's definitely not going to end up the same!

sophacles 2mo ago
> Personally I (and I imagine many other people) could just swap a "real ice cream" for a "frozen dairy desert" and probably not care too much This is a fun statement. It's a complete reversal of the opinion you've had most of this thread. You're just arguing semantics and don't care that ice cream is different. My point is always, and has always been that the frozen dair deserts that aren't ice cream are a way of selling less product (lower density = less actual milk, sugar, etc) at the same price, in a way that invokes the previous status quo. As for sorting: There is no ontological reason some things are sorted by brand and some things are sorted by type. It's purely marketing saying "we'll give you a slightly better deal if you keep our brand together in one big section rather than sorting on types". It's branding deals with the supermarkets - thats the only logic to it. And btw - i never called for any government regulation of anything, even the name ice cream. I never called for flashing lights. I just said it makes sense to sort things that are different categories by category instead of brand.
- vel0city 2mo ago
  Me suggesting I probably wouldn't care too much if I sometimes got a "frozen dairy desert" instead of "ice cream" isn't a complete reversal from me saying I usually prefer basic ice cream. If I said I usually like vanilla but later I said I wouldn't mind too much if I got chocolate also be a "complete reversal"? I still usually prefer vanilla, but hey its a sweet frozen treat, I'm still pretty happy in the end. If someone said "hey want some ice cream?" and they dished out some "frozen dairy desert" I probably would be ok with it instead of acting all disgusted and call them subhuman. As for putting the same brand together, a lot of people like to shop by looking at the brand. Take your earlier example of crackers. There's a ton of varieties of Cheez-its and "cheese-flavored crackers". Should they break up all the different flavors of Cheez-its and have them all over the aisle, or would it kind of make sense to group all the different flavors and varieties of Cheez-its together so people shopping for Cheez-its can see the different flavors of Cheez-its? Seems like a pretty logical way to do things to me. Going back to ice cream, should they also have a section for only vanilla, only chocolate, only strawberry, only neapolitan, only mint chocolate chip, and have all the brands placed in those groups? Whenever a company makes a new flavor, we have to shift all these groups around to make a space for that new flavor even if they're the only entrant for that flavor. One has to hunt for the spot where Moo-llennium Crunch fits in Might as well have the brands grouped together. I'd rather see all the varieties of Blue Bell in one place as it makes it easier to find the specific items.

Gormo 2mo ago

> You seem very upset that I'm pointing out a slimy marketing tactic. I think he's objecting to you presumptively calling it a "slimy marketing tactic" to offer a product that some people clearly do enjoy and are willing to pay for, but which doesn't strictly conform to the legal definition of a specific product category, and which therefore must be labelled as something else. > It's simple - people will think these things are ice cream, Because they are within the "ice cream" category in the general vernacular sense: people are buying these products because they do satisfy their taste for ice cream. They're labelled differently because the labeling regulations are applying hard-and-fast boundaries to fuzzy-edged categories. If you want to have clear, objective rules, you need to set hard boundaries, but that always entails that there will be edge cases that people will debate about, but which will need to be settled on one side of the boundary or the other. If you're going to set technical, quantitative standards for what can be called "ice cream", some products that people regard as ice cream, and consume accordingly, will always end up falling outside that definition.