[amatecha]

It doesn't actually though. Like someone else mentioned, they spend an untold amount of money on advertising. Like $4 billion in 2022, aka 10% of their revenue. https://www.statista.com/statistics/286526/coca-cola-adverti...

That's not a cost to produce their product, or even ship it, or store it. That's strictly just "buying more customers", which has no bearing on my initial claim - that soda is extremely cheap to produce.

[greatwave1]

Well if you want to ignore things like advertising and other administrative expenses (which are necessary when running a global beverage company), you will still find that their Costs of Goods Sold is 40% of their revenue: https://investors.coca-colacompany.com/filings-reports/all-s...

Again, materially different from asking for money in exchange for nothing.