Wonkblog: America has fallen out of love with diet sodas--and possibly for good

Towards the end of the 1990s, more than a decade and a half after Diet Coke was first introduced, Coca-Cola found itself in a rut. The soda maker's best-selling low calorie drink, popular as it had become, appeared to be topping out in reach. The same was true of cola's archrival Diet Pepsi, as well as the rest of the lighter soda business. "Sales of diet soft drinks remain as sluggish as overeaters after Thanksgiving dinner," the New York Times wrote in the spring of 1997.