This entry doesn't really relate to software development, but nonetheless it covers human behaviour and subconscious decision making that does significantly impact our marketplace.

Here in Canada, a year or so ago there was a big kerfuffle in the federal government concerning transfats - a controversy that got a tonne of press (both by boosters encouraging this consumer protection, and critics who decried it as the actions of a nanny state). Namely, that there were calls to ban transfats from the food system, legally eliminating this purportedly dangerous, artificial fat from grocery shelves. This would have made us the second country, after Denmark, to ban transfats. Transfats are, of course, the hydrogentation of otherwise normal, in-moderation-healthy unsaturated fats, molecularly altered to improve handling (hydrogenated oils are solid at room temperature, and in fryers need to be changed less frequently), and reduced spoilage and possibly consumer convenience - goods stay "fresh" on grocery shelves for longer, while baked goods made with transfats, for instance, often stayed bizarrely fresh out of the package for days. Humorously, a couple of decades ago transfats were seen as the saviour from the evils of saturated fats.

While McDonalds, along with the other big fast-food companies, are addicted to transfats, and they're finding it difficult to cut their use of the stuff, I've been noticing more and more formulation changes on store shelves - I've always been a label reader - with transfats being voluntarily eliminated from whole categories. Occasionally this change has occurred silently (there was a mass migration from trans-fats in potato chip products about a year ago, with only a few of the companies actually noting the dramatic health benefit change), while in other case it has come with a huge marketing campaign. Even for those people blissfully unaware, the quantity of transfats in their diet has plummeted, apart from a couple of hold-outs like McDonald's french fries.

So why has this mass change occurred? I suspect two reasons:

• The publicity relating to the debate brought this to the attention of the public, and the public started to subconsiously (or consciously) associate transfats with bad things. This subconscious association is enormously effective in altering behaviour at the root level. Children's treats like Goldfish, which used to be made with hearty amounts of transfats, were suddenly like handing your child a pack of cigarettes, which obviously is unacceptable to parents. The Goldfish company, after switching to a transfat free recipe, claimed that they did it out of the goodness of their hearts, and there was little public demand. I suspect that they are being disingenuous, and they knew that their marketshare would disappear if they didn't accommodate this new health information.
• Legal concerns. Now that everyone knows that transfats are dangerous, and we know that alternatives are possible, food companies are building themselves a massive liability risk with every transfat laden product they ship. It's one thing to rely upon them when there is ignorance, but quite another to turn a blind eye to their dangers when it has been well documented. I suspect a lot of the silent switching has been to limit future legal threats.

Interesting seeing the impact public information, and the future threat of lawsuits, has had upon such a huge part of our marketplace. And in such a short period of time! Government intervention was entirely unnecessary (and might actually have slowed the switch, as what should be a simple health debate would inevitably turn into a bunch of partisan nonsense, with the opposition party and boosters sucking back a tub of hydrogenated oils in the name of freedoms, proclaiming the rights of all Canadians to eat transfats. Such political nonsense is typical in those scenarios, regardless of who is in power and who is across the floor).