As the saying goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Nonetheless, several brands and businesses will sometimes make noticeable changes, be it to reach a wider audience, or simply to shake things up a bit.
In some cases, the effort pays off, like Dunkin' Donuts, who decided to stretch beyond simply selling doughnuts and coffee, eventually even dropping the "Donuts" from their name, but losing none of their popularity.
Other times, things don't go as smoothly, such as when IHOP (an acronym for the International House of Pancakes) temporarily changed its name to IHOB (International House of Burgers), which turned out to be nothing but a weeklong publicity stunt, but was met with anger and vitriol from it's fanbase during that controversial week.
Redditor Fflewddur_Fflam_ was curious to hear what other brands the Reddit community thought betrayed their core audience to disastrous results, leading them to ask:
"Who abandoned their core audience and paid the price for it?"
Humans Are Technically Animals...
"Animal Planet."
"Their tagline became 'surprisingly human.'"
"Nobody wants to watch ANIMAL Planet for people."
"They have other channels."- rainbirdmelody
You Could Say Their Mission Slipped Through The "Cracks"...
"Cracked.com."
"There were a couple years there where they transformed from a second rate Mad knockoff to some of the smartest, funniest stuff on the internet."
"Then the people who held the purse strings decided listicles and photoshop contests were more profitable than a writing staff."- MichaelMyersResple
"StumbleUpon."
"It was a small website giving you randomized internet pages which I used to browse for hours as they were so fun."
"Now it turned into Mix and I have no clue what it is."
"Pretty sure no one uses it and it makes me sad."- MightyDaisy
Working On It GIF by KAT BALLGiphyLess Handcrafted, More Hand-Me-Down
"Etsy."
'Used to be a fairly cool place to buy and sell mostly handcrafted stuff and items to make handcrafted stuff."
"Now it's basically shady Amazon with worse shipping."
"Everyone seems to be drop shippers and a lot of the more niche crafter/artisan things are pushed out and overwhelmed by cheaper, mass produced goods."- THIS_IS_MY_JOYSTICK
The Dreaded Paywall...
"Photobucket!"
"Back when forums were still a thing, Photobucket would host your images for free."
"Then one day they decided EVERYONE would have to pay monthly, no free tier, nothing."
"We all collectively agreed we would not be paying, and that was that."
"I feel like it may have contributed to the death of forums."
"Ruined a few of my car build threads, that's for sure."
"To this day they still send me emails a couple times a year threatening to delete all my photos if I don't come back."-pr0b0ner
Arguably, All For The Best?...
"Yik Yak."
"It was a way to have conversations with people in the area anonymously (really popular on college campuses)."
"They made an update to create user profiles and pretty much everyone just stopped using it because anonymity was the whole point."- Fakjbf
episode 16 moe GIFGiphyChocolate Lovers Revolt!
"This is incredibly niche, but in Norway there used to be two providers of chocolate powder, the kind you mix with hot or cold milk to make hot chocolate or chocolate milk."
"They were O'Boy brand and Nesquik, equally loved and enjoyed a healthy fanbase 'rivalry'."
"O'Boy is a Swedish product sold in Scandinavia and the Baltics since the 50s, Nesquik is of course Nestlé brand and sold all over the world."
"Sometime in the 2010s Nesquik decided to change the formula of the choco powder."
"I imagine to save money."
"And for making hot chocolate the new recipe was fine."
"What Nestlé underestimated, however, is that most Scandinavians drink their choco powder cold to make chocolate milk."
"The new recipe had a different type of sugar in it that wouldn't dissolve in cold milk, leaving a crunchy powder in the milk."
"Norwegians outraged, Nesquik was deemed useless, nearly everyone in the Nesquik camp migrated to O'Boy, and Nestlé lost almost all its market share overnight."
"A few months later, Nesquik is gone from the shelves nearly everywhere, never to recover from the blunder."- -Yngin-
Tornados Filled With Sharks Are Not For Everyone...
"Sci-Fi Channel."
"At some point there was no sci-fi on it."- AlienBeingMe
Tara Reid Storm GIF by SYFYGiphyNot Everyone Can Keep Up With The Times...
"RadioShack."
"They went from selling electronic components, little gadgets, and interesting tech bobbles to nerds to trying to sell expensive cell phone plans and sh*tty batteries to a different audience."
"We saw that the customers who came to RadioShack shifted from middle/upper-income engineers and tech geeks to lower income people in a six year period."
"Then we saw the geeks stop coming in at all because they would come in for some capacitor or breadboard, and the person there wouldn't know what that was."
"If it wasn't a phone, they didn't know."
"Even if it was a phone, they probably couldn't tell you anything about it."
"Old RadioShack employees were knowledgeable and well paid."
"New RadioShack employees didn't give a sh*t about technology."- 001235
Seems FittingThat Their Old Audience Is "History"...
"Anyone else remember when The History Channel was about history and not about aliens?"- rienjabura
Found Footage Video GIF by Eternal FamilyGiphyThere's A Reason They're Not So Well Known For Their Food...
"Every restaurant that opens in the UK goes through the cycle:"
"New and interesting food."
"Very different from most British food."
"Becomes very popular."
"Owners sell to a large company."
"Large company decides that being popular isn't enough, they want everybody to eat there."
"Make the food more British."
"Looming failure is hidden for a while because they attract new customers at exactly the rate they lose old customers."
"New customers have tried it, realize they can get that food anywhere, stop going."
"Chain closes and is replaced by a Greggs or Nandos, depending on the size of the location (not dependent on how far away the nearest Greggs or Nandos is."- skztr
Money Doesn't Solve Everything
"Quora."
"There were excellent groups with intelligent discussions."
"Then it became monetized and people submitted 100s of questions a day."
"'What time does the Walmart close in Boise?'" "
"'My 16 yr old came home with an A- so I took away their phone for 6 months'."- JanuarySoCold
Bored Sales GIF by EGiphySuccess can be a very dangerous thing.
As it can make you think about nothing but getting bigger, often resulting in your leaving people behind along the way.
A cautionary tale for young entrepreneurs.
Redditor Mazider wanted to compare notes on how we've all brutalized our bodies, so they asked:
"What is the most insane thing you’ve put your body through?"
Training to run a 3 minute mile almost killed me.
Like, who the H*LL is chasing me?
Wild
Hungry Debra Messing GIF by Will & GraceGiphy"Currently pregnant with my first kid and realizing how wild this stuff is. Organs relocate themselves, stuff starts hurting in places you didn’t know existed."
toxinogen
The Comeback
"I was paralyzed from the waist down due to a spinal cord injury. Doctors said never walking again was a big possibility. 4-6 hours a day over the past 3-4 years were dedicated to rehab (massaging, stretching, and exercises). After the first year I was walking again, but I couldn’t stand up for too long."
"Now I climb, swim, and weight lift! Deadlift is at 180kg, Squat is 155kg, and Front squat 110 all at the BW of 74kg I think it helped that I’m only 25, but the body does amazing things given the time and effort to care for it properly."
someGuy0202
Getting the Boot
"I injured my calf playing basketball. Didn’t have health insurance at the time (god bless the USA), so decided to not go to ER and treat it myself for a bit to see if it gets better. Friends convinced me it was a high ankle sprain, probably. I iced it, took some ibuprofen, got a boot and a cane from the pharmacy, and went to work the next day (I’m a camera operator/dop for tv shows)."
"I got a sports massage on the calf (hurt like hell) and the pain got better in a week or so. Still didn’t have a range of motion and it was swollen and slightly bruised. Kept working."
"My friend was getting married in St Martin and I promised to film his wedding. So I dragged my a** all the way there from Los Angeles and as I was laying on the beach, one of the wedding guests came up to see why I wasn’t swimming. She looked at my leg and immediately said, 'I’m an MRI technician, and you have a ruptured Achilles.'"
"I couldn’t sleep googling it all night. The swelling, the bruising, and the loss of range of motion were all checked out. Dragged my a** back to LA, got officially married to my fiancé, bought health insurance, and went to a doc... yup, completely ruptured my Achilles. 45 days I was shlepping around like that with it untreated. Got surgery, had a brutal recovery, and had to walk down the aisle with a boot and a cane."
50mm-f2
On the Grind
"I was really heavy on my grind for years, taking caffeine pills, Adderall, and drinking coffee all the time... one night it was so bad that I could feel my kidneys throbbing, my back was sore from dehydration... my chest was bumping so hard that it sounded like a drum in my ear. I thought to myself, maybe I should go to the hospital. What I ended up doing was going right back to sleep. To this day, my heart can't take much stress or I get chest pains."
NaiveAd8426
Fractured
New Girl Facepalm GIF by HULUGiphy"Motorcycle accident. Fractured my skull in a couple of places, and burst an eardrum. Was in the hospital for a month, apparently acting like a child, only people I recognized were my mother, cousin, and best friend. Also, couldn't move my left eye because a nerve and/or muscles moving it pinched by the crack under it. They had to put a metal bit to close the gap."
.arnelthelionjr
I need four wheels.
I can do a bike, but motorcycles are a no.
Less Distance
Go Go Go Running GIFGiphy"A 50k run… seriously sucked and made me stop running long distances. I've done marathons before and didn’t think the jump-up would be as big of a deal as it was. Now I stick to 10k and 15k."
JD054
Gotta Go
"Being there for someone caught in addiction. The late-night calls to come take care of them, the countless trips and hours in the hospital. The mood swings and all of it started taking a toll on me physically to the point I started feeling like I was the one using. I had to walk away after realizing there was nothing I could do. She lost her battle a little over a year ago and it tore me up. Still working through it but it’s a daily process. Rip LD and I hope you finally have peace."
Dirty_Boy_Jay
All work/No play
"Working everyday 12+ hours without a day off, for more than a month."
Any_South2605
"This is tougher than most people think, especially if it's high-intensity work in the heat or cold. I do outages every year that are usually at least two weeks, approximately 12-14 hours a day. Some days they hit over 20 hours, it takes its toll after a week or so. Especially if you have a family. I lost 10 lbs in my last outage, stressed as hell trying to oversee a critical path project."
TheSwissRussian
The Worst
"The whole Appalachian trail was pretty tough but so spread out it didn’t seem that bad. Thought long-distance hiking (trail legs) = marathon (running legs)… that was NOT the case. Worst pain ever. Took almost 2 years to enjoy running in any form then I ran a 50-mile ultra marathon a few weeks ago, proper training kept the pain at bay."
forvillage22
Hazards
hazard GIFGiphy"Went into a secure facility to train to do my job as a chem ops specialist in a live environment where nerve gas exposure was a real risk."
jackfaire
Chemicals are always an issue.
How people do jobs near chemicals I'll never know.
Redditor BBQPancake wanted to hear about the times people almost let the devil win, so they asked:
"What was the closest you've gotten to killing someone?"
Everytime someone CHOOSES not to use a turn signal, I roll the dice if this is the moment.
No Hazards
lauren conrad car GIF by The HillsGiphy"Dude was changing his tire on the side of the freeway about half past midnight, dressed in dark clothes, no hazards on, and sitting halfway into the right lane. Almost splattered that dude."
Flooded_Strand
Totally Weird Experience
"11:30 pm Remote country road with no streetlights. There’s a tiny traffic island in the middle of the road and I see what looks like a slightly different-colored silhouette standing there. By all rights, I should not have seen him there but something in my brain clicked and swore there was a figure standing there so I slammed on my brakes as the figure jumped out in front of me, car stopped about 2m away."
"He smiled really sinisterly and started walking towards the car, I reversed and made to move around him slowly and he jumped in front again, I managed to drive on the wrong side of the road to escape him."
"A minute down the road I stop to flash my lights at every passing car to warn them and I sh*t you not the second car that passed was a cop and I explained what happened. I circled back a minute later and saw the dude on the side of the road in cuffs. Totally weird experience."
HeyMrCow
SLAM!
"When I passed my driving test many years ago, I asked the instructor if he had any advice for a new driver. He warned me that if I ever saw a ball roll into the street to immediately hit the brakes because there was a good chance a kid will follow. I never forgot that and have religiously followed it ever since."
"A couple of years ago I was driving down a residential street and it happened again and something in my mind told me to SLAM on my brakes and so I did. I came to a stop just feet from a really little kid who was completely frozen in terror."
"That driving instructor is probably dead of old age by now, but wherever he is, I hope he understands that he saved that little kid's life and saved me a lifetime of guilt and heartache."
MaybeADumbass
The potatoes were stuck
"Pneumatic potato cannon. My friends and I were shooting it in my backyard. Must have launched off dozens of potatoes at this point. We decided to stuff 3 potatoes in the barrel. When we open the valve to shoot it nothing happened. We were sitting around 60 psi and had no launch."
"The potatoes were stuck. My friend went to look down the barrel. I saw what was going to happen and lifted the back forcing the barrel into the ground. At that time the potatoes shot out and left a small crater in the ground."
ELONGATEDSNAIL
I Shudder
shooting breaking glass GIF by PhazedGiphy"I was fermenting homemade kombucha in a tightly closed bottle. Which I forgot to burp. One day a bottle exploded, while my mother-in-law was in the kitchen. Luckily, she was far from the bottle at the moment and got only a scratch on her hand, but we had to dislodge glass shards from the walls. I still shudder from a thought of what would happen if she were closer."
nazanar
Closed bottles and pressure, that is a toxic mess.
Take shelter.
Avengers Unite
the avengers GIFGiphy"Every time I drive in Sydney on a weekend 4000 people either wanna walk out into traffic without looking or cycle onto main roads without pausing or merge into my lane without indicating/checking. By staying in defensive driving mode I've saved more lives than the Avengers."
RGH81
6 Inches
"Was on a film set working when a mentally unstable person with a knife approached me and another crew member."
"Was forced to take a swing at him with a gobo arm (it's essentially a metal rod with a metal knuckle on the end of it). Swung hard enough that if it connected, would have caved in this dude's temple."
"Just missed, and it coming so close must have jolted the guy back to reality and he took off. So closest I came to killing someone was about 6 inches."
Ringlovo
A Few feet from the Girl
"Used to work a delivery job. One afternoon, I'm driving back to work in the old POS delivery van and some girl bolts across the road (presumably to catch a bus that had pulled over up ahead)."
"Slammed on the brakes and came to a sliding stop completely sideways in the middle of the road no more than 2 or 3 feet from the girl. I still think about it sometimes, it was a heavy old Ford van, with no ABS. If I'd been speeding even slightly I think I would've hit her."
ZatyDaddy
Madre de Dios
"Driving a loaded truck, probably about 10,000 lb or so, at the speed limit. Traffic in the oncoming lane is at a standstill. Some [censored] decided he was too important to wait with everyone else and pulls out, face to face with me, at very short range. I swerved hard right, didn't really expect to miss him but somehow did."
"Then swerved hard left to avoid the people on the sidewalk, somehow missed them too. Didn't think you could make a truck do that. Apparently, my passenger (the owner of the truck I was driving for) didn't think it was possible either. I learned some new swear words in Spanish and what sounded like the prayer of thanks to Madre de Dios."
philzar
Fired
New Girl Facepalm GIF by HULUGiphy"High school friend's dad wanted to teach us how to shoot. Went to the range and when he wasn't looking I grabbed the pistol and tried the John Woo sideways grip shot. It flew out of my hand and the bullet ricocheted off the side wall. That was my last time to ever fire a gun."
eguez780
We really need to be vigilant.
Do you have any similar experiences? Let us know in the comments below.
"Coworkers that couldn’t handle the sexual tension anymore and went for it. How’d it turn out?"
A Very Costly Mistake
"Really poorly tbh."
"Extremely drunk sex and ended up losing our friendship."
"We were 24 and worked at a bank together, we used to be best friends."
"But now we haven’t talked in years."- sarruhgirl·
Nope
"I have been rejected respectfully each time."- kingspooky93·
There Can Be Too Much Of A Good Thing
"Not great."
"Dated for just over a year (on and off), but now that we’re not together, it sucks having to see her almost every day."-StellarSandDweller·
It Happened...
"After years of sexual tension we did it."
"It wasn't anything close of what we expected, never talked about it again and we went back to just being friends."-dimensionsanalyst
Lucky For Him, Less So For Her...
"She's been suffering my snoring for 20 years now."- get_off_my_lawn_n0w
Didn't Go Unnoticed
"HR all of a sudden wanted a 'friendly chat'."- DiggingUpTheCorpses
Ups And Downs...
"Made out in the walk-in fridge."
"Went out for a while, got engaged, moved in together, got married, started drifting apart, realized we were growing into different people with very different long term goals, got divorced, haven’t really spoken since."
"Together for close to 11 years total."
"Main issue was kids."
"We both wanted them at first, then she no longer did."
"We cared enough for each other to not want to see the other unhappy long term, and we had an amicable split."
"We did not get married in the walk-in, nor spend a tremendous amount of time in it."
"We DID have an ice sculpture at the wedding however."
"It was not a Netflix & Chill deal, it was years and years ago, so more like Blockbuster & Chill."
"I’m good now, thanks."- gn0xious
No Issue Here...
"I run a sole proprietorship, so I 'go for it' about twice a day."
"Don't think it will last, though; I'm not really my type."- MyNSFWside
Got Out When The Getting Was Good
"It was great."
"Good sex, and then I left the job before it got weird."- TIMBURWOLF·
No Regrets Whatsoever
"It was the hottest sex I ever had."
"We are still in touch, but we are continents apart."
"I haven't met him since 2013."
"Pretty sure if we meet again, we will not waste time talking."- SingingBull
"Had sex with him two months into my employment there."
"Nineteen years later we have a mortgage in the suburbs and two children."- Extra-Simple9711·
I Love You Episode 20 GIF by The OfficeGiphyNothing But Regrets
"Terrible."
"'Don’t f**k your boss."- oyofmidmidworld
A Bit Of Good Luck?
"Been together for 5 years now and still working in the same company (different departments)."
"Both of us had multiple promotions since we got together."
"Great sex and great on saving gas and food expense as we live together now lol."- crapuccino4
You Can't Make This Stuff Up
"Not great."
"He would flirt with me and come over to hang out."
"Told how he was trying to evict his ex girlfriend from the apartment because she wouldn't leave before the lease was up (which was true btw she confirmed that)."
"He told me he liked me alot and wanted to get to know me."
"Then he decided that He wanted to convert to Mormonism."
"He became panicked about going to hell and after we would hang out (nothing sexual) he would sob."
"Full on sob."
"Begging God to forgive him."
"He and the rest of the people I worked with were tight and he would go through these depressive episodes and crash at their houses."
"I started getting bullied and harassed HARD at work."
"One day he invites me to his house to watch a movie."
"We watch the movie."
"He tries to kiss me but not really."
"I am confused as f*ck at this point and ask him to take me home."
"On the way he asks me if I like him, I said yes I really liked him."
"He asked me if I would consider dating him and maybe have a sexual relationship with him."
"I said yes because I really liked him."
"HE LAUGHED AND SAID I WAS NOTHING BUT A NYMPHO WH*RE BROUGHT TO HIM BY SATAN TO MAKE HIM STUBLE IN HIS WALK WITH GOD!"
"He said there was no way he would ever consider me because I was not A Good Mormon Girl."
"He dropped me at my car after bursting into sobs AGAIN and yelled he has to pray for his soul I sh*t you not."
"Turns out he was telling EVERYONE that I was 'forcing myself onto him' and he was uncomfortable with me."
"The bullying got worse."
"I quit with no notice."
"I WAS ONLY THERE FOR 45 DAYS."- PwrtopUltimate
Samuel L Jackson Reaction GIF by Coming to AmericaGiphyYou never know when love might hit you, and sometimes it might be on an elevator to your office.
Even so, always proceed with caution.
After all, think about how awkward it is to run into an ex or a one-night stand on the street, then think about what that would be like 8 hours a day, five days a week...
"Guys that sleep with other guy's girlfriends, do you feel bad afterwards? Why or why not?"
Lose A Significant Other, Make A Friend!
"Hooked up with a girl at a party once."
"We hit it off and arranged to go on an actual date the next week."
"About an hour later someone told me her BF had just showed up."
"I gave the dude a beer, explained that I had no idea she wasn't single and that I'm sorry."
"He gave me a massive hug and thanked me for being upfront."
"We both told her to f*ck off and spent the rest of the night drinking and singing karaoke together."
"Top bloke."
"I didn't feel bad; I was lied to, he was betrayed, she was a *unt, nothing more to it really."- 5Volt
Pulled The Plug
"I did it twice not knowing they had bfs."
"Yes, I felt bad afterwards and I totally cut contact when I found out."- born_again_tim
Cartoons Button GIF by NickelodeonGiphyBuh-Bye!
"When I was in college a married woman tried to hide her marriage… to a deployed Marine."
"As soon as I found out, I bounced."
"I never condone cheating."- ItsbeenBroughton
Two People Were Duped
"I actually have a story about this."
"So I hooked up with a girl who had a long term boyfriend at the time."
"I didn't know and we had few encounters over a two month period."
"One day I was curious and decided to look at her socials and that's when I found out about him."
"I never bothered to look because I was being ignorant and it was first time being in a fwb situation so I was excited and wanted to keep it secret."
"As I scrolled down her socials all I saw were pics of them on expensive dates and trips and I just felt so bad for the guy."
"I felt like I had become the thing I hated the most."
"So that same night I decided to DM him about the situation and send him the texts between me and her to show him proof."
"He then called me and sounded really hurt holding back tears and all I could do was just say sorry over and over."
"But he thanked me and told me he would be leaving her."
"I then blocked her number and thought it was over with but later on that week the girl showed up at my place of work and damaged my car."
"Although I was angry at the moment I chose not to press charges as advised by the police (not USA) because the damage was minimal."
"But yea that's my story."
"On a positive note he found a new girl who looks way better and they equally appreciate each other outwardly on their socials so yes it was a happy ending."- rankyy
Beyonce Lemonade GIFGiphyEven The Idea Is Hard Enough
"I lost a mate this way."
"We were really close friends and he was going through a rough time with his then girlfriend."
"She decided to get back at him by writing some bullsh*t in her journal about her and I hooking up and then conveniently left it out so he would see it."
"It was 100% untrue."
"Friend confronted me on it and I told him it was untrue but he didn’t believe me."
"We stopped talking after that."
"He eventually reached out to me about 6 months later after she admitted to him that she had made it all up."
"The damage was done and we never were the same again."- tizod
This Opens Many Questions...
"I had a brief friends with benefits arrangement with a girl who had a boyfriend."
"I didn't know the guy, and I was young and impetuous at the time."
"After time went on, I started to feel bad about it."
"It all came to a head when she told me she wanted to leave him to be with me and I said no."
"She asked why not."
"I said I couldn't trust her as a girlfriend."
"She asked why."
"I said, you've literally spent the last 2 months cheating on your boyfriend."
"With me."
"Why else do you think?"- Idontdanceforfun
Fox Accuse GIF by New GirlGiphyAn Agreement Or Just Her Policy?
"I hooked up with a lady at my gym, she didn't say sh*t about being married, she came to my place the two times we hooked up."
"I saw her again at the gym with a dude, when he went off to go do something I went over and said hi, she said don't talk to her here with her husband around, she will call me later."
"She called me later and told me her husband worked out of town a ton, when in town she was with him, when he's out she's free to do as she pleases."
"We did not meet up again."- SomeRandomUser00
Thankfully, They Grew Up...
"I did it knowingly during High School."
"I was dating and she was too, but we both had issues in our relationships and we didn't know how to figure them out."
"Clinging to our toxic relationships we found solace in each other and enjoyed spending time together."
"We ended up fooling around and after we had sex, we both stopped."
"We stayed friends for a while and both continued dating, but eventually both of us were single."
"I regret it, he doesn't know about it, I told my gf and she accepted my apology, even though we did break up about a year later."
"I'm not proud of myself and I still hate myself for it."- Slippy_666
Nipped In The Bud...
"A buddy’s wife tried to get with me once."
"I told her she had 90 seconds to call her husband (my best friend from High school), put the call on speaker, and explain to the two of us why she was a complete POS…or I’d call him myself."
"They divorced the next month."- Pennameus_The_Mighty
Season 2 No GIF by MartinGiphySome Secrets Aren't Worth Keeping
"If i know she cheated with me on her dude I let the dude know.""
"i hate that kind of people."- DaEpicBob
It's hard to place blame on those who unknowingly got together with partnered individuals.
Those who knew what they were doing, on the other hand, should have expected there to be consequences of some sort or another.
Do you have any similar experiences, let us know in the comments below.