Actually they didn't. The original coca-cola that was discontinued was sweetened with sugar, when they "brought it back" it was sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. I really believe the whole "New coke" thing was a scam to get all the old stock off the market and consumed before the new corn syrup stuff was introduced. If they had simply made the change there would have been complaints and questions as to why some bottles of coca-cola tasted different from others.