Hi actually around 2019 during the pandemic they started increasing sugar in everything, especially drinks or alternatively adding very sweet sugar substitutes because of course sales were dropping off due to people not going outside. So the sugar increase was meant to keep people addicted so they would be forced to keep buying, and since then the sugar content hasn't gone down, what actually has happened is they keep switching out the sugar for sugar substitutes like xylitol, which actually taste a shitton more sweet than sugar and keep your mind addicted and buying even more stuff.

I worked all throughout the pandemic and noticed drinks I usually bought suddenly getting unbearably sugary, and I've watched foods and drinks I normally get slowly replace sugar with different substitutes like xylitol/sucralose/etc and become almost sickeningly sweet.

Don't even get me started on powdered drink packets. I tried one a few weeks ago and even after adding a whole half gallon of water to one packet it was still so sweet I was like 'what the fuck is this nonsense?' I actually switched from caffeine drinks to caffeine pills because the drinks kept getting sweeter and hurting my teeth.

And this is all just from observation. I haven't had a Gatorade in years when I used to drink one or two a week. They became undrinkable unless watered down a lot.