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alternatehistory.com
Because of the recent Coke threads, I was skimming through a book on the history of Coca-Cola and found out that in the 1920s and 1930s, the owners of Pepsi offered to sell the company to the Coca-Cola Company three times. This was also around the time when Coca-Cola was cracking down on all the imitators that had appeared. IIRC Pepsi was pretty much the last one standing.
So, my question to you all is what if Coca-Cola had bought Pepsi in the 1920s. Would another major competitor to Coke have appeared eventually? Conversely, could the Coca-Cola Company have maintained a near monopoly status to this day? Also realize that the lawsuits that Coke filed against the imitators pretty much wrote modern American trademark law.