Pepsi has yet another diet soda on the market, which uses a combination of both sugar and stevia.

Coke. Diet Pepsi. Diet Coke. Pepsi One. Coke Zero. Clearly, this hasn’t gone far enough. Pepsi’s new offering, “Pepsi True,” has 30% less sugar than traditional Pepsi, and is marketed as a “mid-calorie” beverage. I suppose the target market here isn’t fat people or fit people, just those with a couple extra pounds to shed, or someone who skipped yesterday’s workout. I guess.

Making things even weirder, Pepsi True is only available on Amazon. Pepsi is following Coke’s lead in many ways here. First, Coke recently launched a “mid-calorie” soda of their own, Coca-Cola Life. Secondly, Coke brought back Surge – an abomination of a soft drink that tastes like Mountain Dew with a rotten egg mixed in – as an Amazon-exclusive a few weeks ago.

Just sit there for a second and let it sink into your head that each Pepsi and Coke now sell three diet sodas each. The part about being Amazon-exclusive isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as Amazon continues to increase its impact on Americans’ shopping habits, especially since the company expanded to include grocery items.

However, the packaging details for Pepsi True are befuddling, to say the least. The beverage will be available exclusively in 24-packs of 7.5-ounce cans, because traditional 12-ounce cans are boring and unhip, I guess. Also, for those of you who live in apartments without the storage space for entire cases of soda, too bad, you don’t get to have any.

Pepsi claims to be targeting Pepsi True at “adults in their late 20s.” Most of the people I know that are under 30 haven’t even bothered switching to light beer or reduced-sodium soup yet. Maybe Pepsi knows better than I do, and maybe your average 27-year-old does feel like his life would be better with a mid-calorie soda in it…but I have my doubts.

I’m done with all this True business.

Howard Davidson Arlington MA