With so many lego collaborations, special sets, special parts, I kind of miss the days when lego was more simple and required more imagination.
As someone who's been into Lego for life, and as a middle-aged parent who still regularly buys sets to build myself independent of the sets I buy for my kids, I'm more than happy for them to crank out the licensed sets (which I ignore) in exchange for them to still be here making those Creator/Technics ones for me.
Do you have a source on this?
Not doubting it, Lego is a good product with almost indefinite reuse, so it's not surprising if sales can't perpetually expand.
If we're to make it through the resource and energy crunch we're facing we need an economic system that allows entities to continue even when everything they make is made to last as long as possible - be repairable, reusable; heirloom grade.
This is a late reply so you might not see it, but:
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-lego-made-a-huge-turn...
> The only reason Lego survived during this difficult time was due to the success of the Bionicle and “Star Wars” series. The first “Star Wars” Lego kits launched in 1999 and represented the company’s first foray into licensed series, many of which became integral to the company
Infographic showing the revenue curve before/after licensed sets were introduced:
https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2024/01/in_lego...
The summary is that they almost went bankrupt and licensing basically saved them.
Or, in other words: What are the titles of those documentaries?