I would like the world to speculate on the conditions required for us to see the very last Coca-Cola. Will we develop into completely health-conscious creatures or breatharians? Or are we as a species stuck with this substance until we meet oblivion? Will anti-factory luddites free us? How about an ice age? Diabetes? Is it possible that Coke will be with us long enough to addict new species of semi-intelligent outer-space beings?
Welcome to the board.
This is a very interesting question, and one that I will be happy to discuss over in Great Debates.
I think the collapse of captalism is the only thing that could resulty in Coca Cola ceasing to be.
Although even then I can imagine the families of high-ranking official of whatever ruling group there is might have secret supplies of the highly dangerous but oh-so-desirable brown fizzy iquid.
Now I’m leaving becuase I’m far too flighty ever to be found in Great Debates.
I’m votin’ for “In My Humble Opinion.” And since I’m the moderator, my vote counts most.
Jill
Aw, Redcoke, won’t you please discuss this with me?? It is such a very interesting thought. I promise not to get all GDish on you!
Woohoo! IMHO. There’s hope for you after all, Redflight!
If Capitalism collapses, people will still want a pause to refresh before the next system kicks in.
I don’t have actual figures but I’m pretty sure Pepsi is overtaking it in total sales (based on projections from the last couple years). If Coke continues to decline we could possibly see a buyout years down the road (for the sake my scenario lets just assume the merger would be okayed).
In this case we would not see Coca Cola itself, only the other sodas that belong to it (sprite, etc). THis is the only scenario that I could see playing out and even this would take a severe nosedive in sales by Coke(or some bad BAD decisions causing a decline in stock prices… either/or).
As far as the entire industry going under due to health concerns - my wife and I would keep this industry solvent single handedly.
Maybe we would see the last Coca-Cola if Coke changed their formula to Even Newer Coke, and everyone ended up hating it even more than New Coke and unanimously boycotted all Coke products…
But are you talking about only Coca-Cola, or does Pepsi count too?
I’ve been racking my brain, and I can’t imagine any circumstances that would cause Coke to cease to exist. If they were taken over by Pepsi (a remote possibility), then I think Pepsi would survive forever.
Even if there is a total collapse of capitalism and the free market, the black market will still exist. Heck, I’d buy it.
It won’t disappear because of health concerns. Look at smoking.
Oh, no you don’t. I just moved the great Dr Pepper debate out of GD. What are you people trying to do? Start a Pepsi revolution? Or a new cola war?
World War III, complete with biological warfare and many tons of nuclear weapons. Started by space aliens. When there are too few humans to continue fighting, the survivors will emerge from their bunkers where they huddled, safe but terrified, within the bosom of the Earth. As they take leave of their rat and cockroach friends, they will discover a New World. A world where the water glows from strange toxins, where “dinner” is whatever you can catch – if you dare eat it. Where shelter is the blasted shell of a 1990 Honda Civic, and safety is keeping out of sight. There is no social order. There is no human family. There is no Coke.
Define “Coca Cola.”
If they change their formula a smidge, is it still Coke?
Is kosher Coke (made with sugar instead of corn syrup) Coke?
What if they change it to tomato juice, but still call it
“Coke”? What’s the dividing line?
Is caffeine-free Coke Coke? Diet Coke? Tab?
If any change to the present “Coke Classic” recipe is not
Coke, then maybe only ten years or so.
If any change is OK, so long as the label claims it’s Coke,
then it’ll be around until the sun explodes.
Is the OP creator thinking of the Blade Runner curse?:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/movies/bladerunner-faq/
I do not think CocaCola needs to worry, but there is 18 years left until 2019 (Blade Runner’s time). 
I’ll tell you one thing; if we ever DO get down to one last Coca-Cola, I’ll frickin’ kill you for it. That baby’s mine.
Mmmmmmm, Coke.
It’s decaf for you from now on!
Or maybe something will come along that just supersedes Coke. Appeals to people more.
When I was at school (long ago) we actually were taught to calculate sines and cosines. We had books of tables and slide rules. Learning to use a slide rule was a REAL adult thing. The thought that each student might have a computer of their own was ridiculous - computers took up the whole floor of a building, and used SO much electricity!
My parents drank tea all their lives, disdained coffee, and then the instant coffee ads hit New Zealand, at about the same time as television arrived. They succumbed, and in their later years a cup of tea was a nuisance and a novelty.
Just the same way, an infant stumbling and learning to crawl right now, might invent the drink that someday captures the taste and imagination of the public. And many years from now Coca Cola might be a museum item.
“So people actually drank this brown yukky-looking stuff?And the caffeine woke them up a little? But if they didn’t get even one orgasm from it, why would they bother?”
“It doesn’t even change colour when you shake it up”
“And it contains no proteins or vitamins, so it couldn’t replace a meal, either”
Just as once people would have been unable to envisage a city without horses and carriages. so we cannot imagine the successor to -oh, you know that carbonated stuff - Coke, was it?
Greenboss
Jake Sanders and Howard Waldrop wrote a SF novel, The Texas-Israeli War: 1999, back in the 1973. It’s a technothriller set after WWIII with Israel being the only major country untouched by the war.
The final scene of the book was this:
On a less fictional note, anyone who thinks Coca-Cola will be around forever, should look up the history of Moxie. Moxie used to be the number one cola in the country. Coke was a distant second. Moxie decided to invest its profits in buying sugar plantations to lower its production costs. Coke decided to risk all its money on massive advertising instead.
I think the demise will be a lot less dramatic than that.
Look at all the big product names that disappeared, and a good many were absorbed into other products.
Oldsmobile, 99 years of tradition, just became the least of its brothers at GM.
The San Francisco Examiner, the pride of the Hearst empire, was sold when the Chronicle it had purchased became the stronger Siamese twin.
Coke will go the same way. It will buy out Pepsi at some point, when the Republicans are in to avoid a restraint of trade charge. Then Pepsi will grab 51% of the market and Coke will disapper.
“The last Coca-Cola”?
No, really… what noun DID you mean to put there?!
“cup of coffee”? “cigarette”? “line of cocaine”?
The last Coca Cola…
feh… it’ll never happen