Molson Hart

Question: Why are toy businesses such bad businesses? Inventory?

Is it true that Lego didn't patent the plastic.. i.e. it's a secret recipe? I've used some knock-off Lego with my kids and it's crap.. doesn't join and separate the same way. Could a big chuck of the Lego value be in the cornered resource of the plastic chemistry?

They patented it. The patents are expired. Any quality issues you see now are just a function of manufacturing and trade secrets. There's nothing special about what Lego does today manufacturing wise though.

Not many toys have the broad category flexibility of lego to extend across gender, age, genre, appeal to imagination aka infinite play(build it anyway you want, play it however you want). They also built stories ard lego, leveraging their own lego movies plus the IPs of other

Popular stories. Batman, star wars. Cities, Ferrari, transformer etc. Etc. When you are barbie, you are stuck with one gender, one stereotype body, one image/DNA. You become vulnerable to all those societal shifts. Lego is a lot more durable given its transformable image/DNA..

Good point. I'm excited for body positivity barbie haha

Did Mattel buy American girl doll? I can't recall. But I think barbie did change its body shape. But the problem is a fat barbie is no longer barbie.. That's the beauty of brand DNA. You can't change your DNA. So some toys are born inferior to others..