| > Lego bought brick link to keep it alive after the founders family tired of running it after he died. that makes a nice story but was not at all Legos core motivation taking control over the main secondary market is a grate way to - gain positive sentiment through things like the creator program - bolster you product prices by making sure the prices of 2nd hand sells stay high (which is both good and bed for the consumer, it's good as part of it is about consumer protection and reseller quality, but it's bad because there is a lot of insensitive to drive prices up beyond that) - systematically exclude all brick competition from the most dominant 2nd hand market, a typical consumer hostile marked power abuse move which by the removal of competition allows artificial higher part resell prices which then can be used to reason for higher prices of new products and also allows better enforcement of other abuse strategies, like how they systematically abuse trade mark law wrt. mini figures - by subtle support for one particular 2nd hand store and supple opposition(1) to others they can further enhance their monopoly position. (1: Or for anything reselling non Lego brick often not at all subtle legal harassment) - some degree of influence on information flowing through the market place, they can't abuse it that much but it's still a factor so they have a lot of money reasons which sadly most likely won't be good for the consumer to buy it, any story about "saving it" (weather real or not) is a bonus on top which by itself is unlikely to have made them buy it. |