I'm about halfway through making the #LEGO Christmas wreath and i'm not loving it at all. It's weird. Some builds are really fun, and I loved the wildflowers, but this is so tedious and repetitive over and over. I suspect while there is an alternate tabletop decoration variation, I will probably never build this again once I'm done. VIsually, it's great. Labor is a strong "not fun" ranking from me.
@anthropunk Interesting. LEGO has been trying to figure out for a while why kids stopped really playing with LEGO like we did in the 60s and 70s, and just building it like a model than leaving it on the shelf. I guess it's some kind of capitalism fail that in making the package look more appealing, they made the toy less fun. Would you have bought the same number of bricks for the same price without the meticulous instructions?
@j2bryson @anthropunk I feel like part of it is because LEGO back then was like this, and LEGO now is much more like this, and there's just less of a focus on playing. By catering to older customers who are more interested in building, they've grown that part of their demographic.

Obviously this is an exaggerated example. But maybe this is a little bit of the reason.
@eviloatmeal https://mastodon.social/@j2bryson/116064321395905732 ps in the 1960s, there were just special kits for houses and trains, we had train track! but nothing nearly as specific as your "before" and no pictures on the boxes iirc btbh the boxes didn't last long, it was all buckets.