The Future of Consumer Law, On Tap.
The Next Round pours out the newest trends shaping consumer law before they hit the mainstream. Grab a seat—your next legal insight is already on its way.
Who Stole the Color from Our Lives?
Cars, Couches, and Your Consumer Rights.
12/8/25- If you grew up in the 1980s or 90s, you /remember it vividly: driveways dotted w/ith cherry-red hatchbacks, emerald sedans, and electric-blue convertibles. //Living rooms glowed with mauve, teal, and patterned sofas your grandparents still defend. Fast-forward to today, and the landscape feels drained — gray SUVs, white crossovers, black sedans, and homes coated in greige from floor to ceiling. One automotive analysis recently found that over 80% of cars sold today are white, black, gray, or silver. That’s not an accident. It’s a transformation.
And it’s not just about taste — it’s about marketing, economics, and increasingly, the law.
How We Got from Hot Pink to Greige
Color cycles have always moved with culture, but something distinctive happened between the 1980s and today.
1980s–1990s: The Color Explosion
These were the decades of personality. Car lots looked like Skittles packets. Home interiors leaned bold and expressive. Manufacturers offered huge color ranges because consumers expected variation — and companies didn’t yet know how to algorithmically optimize choices.
2000s–2010s: The Retreat to Neutrals
As the millennium turned, subtlety replaced vibrancy. Beige, cream, espresso, slate, and silver became the safe bets. Designers began insisting neutrals were “timeless,” “refined,” and “high-end.” Automakers experimented less with bold colorways and more with metallic gray variants. Builders began defaulting homes to “resale-friendly” palettes — the kind that wouldn't offend a hypothetical future buyer.
Why Neutrals Took Over
Neutrals solved a problem for companies:
- Fewer pigments to stock
- Easier production
- Less risk of consumer regret
- Higher perceived value without higher production cost
In other words: neutrals were cheap, safe, and profitable — and companies built an entire aesthetic philosophy around them.
Marketing, Psychology, and “Choice”
Color psychology is one of marketing’s oldest tools. Marketers know bright colors stimulate energy and individuality, while neutrals evoke calm, stability, and sophistication. But today, these psychological associations are amplified by data-driven algorithms that track consumer clicks, preferences, and behaviors.
Companies curate the color menu long before you see it. You think you’re choosing freely — but in reality:
- You’re shown the neutral options most profitable for the company
- Bold colors are hidden, offered in limited stock, or tied to expensive “appearance packages"
- Digital displays highlight the highest-margin color options through contrast, placement, and defaults
Your “choice” is often a carefully staged performance.
Companies learned that if you can teach consumers to associate gray with luxury, you can charge a luxury price for gray — even if it’s the cheapest paint they produce.
Where the Law Comes In
Color itself isn’t regulated. But how companies use color to influence, restrict, or financially pressure consumers absolutely intersects with consumer protection law.
Deceptive or Unclear Pricing & Add-Ons
If a dealer or retailer charges a “premium color fee,” the fee must be clearly disclosed — and truthful. Claims like “this color costs more to produce” or “this is a rare edition” can cross into misrepresentation territory if unsupported.
Illusory Choice & Restrictive Covenants
Builders and HOAs frequently limit exterior color options — sometimes to just three shades of taupe. If these restrictions aren’t disclosed before purchase, consumers may have claims under UDAP laws, contract law, or state HOA statutes.
Dark Patterns in Online Interfaces
Companies increasingly use visual manipulation to steer consumers:
- expensive colors highlighted in high-contrast buttons
- cheaper colors buried in dropdown menus
- pre-selected costly options
- “only 1 left!” messages for high-margin colors
The FTC has stated that such design-based manipulation can violate fed law.
Misrepresentations About Resale Value
Salespeople often claim neutrals guarantee better resale value. Unless backed by real market data, such statements may be misleading — especially if they drive consumers into higher-priced options.
Practical Tips for Consumers
Here’s how to protect yourself:
✔ Ask for itemized pricing on any color-related add-ons.
If a paint color costs extra, ask why.
✔ Get HOA or builder rules in writing before signing anything.
Look specifically for sections on “architectural control” or “approved palettes.”
✔ Challenge vague claims about resale value.
If someone says, “This color holds its value better,” respond with: “Show me the data.”
✔ Watch for digital nudges.
If a checkout page highlights upgrades in neon and hides the free option in gray text, remember: that’s not a design choice. That’s a sales strategy.
You may not care whether your next car is teal or taupe. But you should care if your choices are being narrowed — and your wallet quietly drained — through curated menus, manipulated interfaces, and marketing narratives that have little to do with truth.
If you believe you were misled in the purchase or financing of a car, home, or major household item, reach out. Behind every “neutral” choice is a strategy — and sometimes, a legal issue worth challenging.
The Beige Tax
Why Consumers Pay More for Less Color — and What the Law Has to Say About It
12/7/25- For decades, American consumer culture embraced color. Cars came in jewel tones and wild metallics, living rooms exploded with teal and mauve, and even kitchen appliances showed personality. Today, the landscape is radically different. We drive gray SUVs, live in greige homes, and buy electronics in a narrow spectrum of blacks and silvers. Marketers call it modern, minimal, elevated, or luxurious.
But there’s a less glamorous truth beneath the aesthetic shift: Neutral colors are often the cheapest and easiest for companies to produce—yet consumers are paying more for them than ever. This isn’t a coincidence. It’s an algorithmic strategy.
Companies learned that if you teach people to associate muted palettes with wealth and sophistication, you can charge more for the illusion of “premium.” And consumers, unaware of the psychological and technological machinery operating behind the scenes, rarely question the markup for a shade of gray that costs no more to make than a vibrant turquoise.
The result is something few consumers realize they’re experiencing: a Beige Tax.
The Aesthetic of Wealth — Manufactured and Monetized
Minimalist, neutral aesthetics have been sold to consumers as the hallmark of good taste—quiet luxury, subtlety over flash, timelessness over trend. What gets obscured in that narrative is that limiting color choice is extremely efficient for manufacturers:
- fewer pigment batches
- lower inventory complexity
- streamlined production lines
- standardized marketing materials
- reduced returns due to “unexpected” color variation
In other words: neutrals save companies money. Yet at the same time, those same colors are positioned as high-end. A gray car often costs more than the same model in a brighter color. Interior paint upgrades to “designer neutrals” come with surcharges. Appliances, furniture, and fixtures all have “premium” versions that are, functionally, just more subdued. The value doesn’t come from the color. It comes from the story companies tell about the color. And that story has been amplified by algorithms.
Algorithms Don’t Sell Color — They Sell Identity
In the age of machine learning, companies don’t simply track what consumers buy; they track what people like you buy:
- Professionals in higher-income ZIP codes prefer muted palettes.
- Real estate agents promote neutral staging for resale value.
- Social media trends reward minimalism and punish “dated” bright colors.
Algorithms recognize patterns long before consumers do, and marketing adapts to reinforce them. This creates a feedback loop:
- Algorithms notice that consumers respond positively to neutrals.
- Marketing pushes neutrals harder.
- Inventory shifts to match algorithmic “demand.”
- Choice diminishes, making neutrals appear dominant.
- Prices rise because demand appears strong.
Soon, neutral colors aren’t just an option—they’re the default. And defaults have tremendous behavioral power. Consumers think they freely chose the gray car or the beige sofa, but the reality is more subtle: the algorithm offered those options more prominently and framed them as aspirational.
What This Means for Consumers
You’re not imagining it: You have less color choice than you used to—and you’re being nudged toward the most profitable option. This doesn’t mean buying a gray car is wrong. Or that minimalism is a scam. But it does mean consumers benefit from understanding how aesthetic preference is shaped, monetized, and sometimes manipulated.
As a consumer-rights attorney, I see the pattern clearly: When companies use aesthetics not to express beauty, but to justify pricing structures that aren’t transparent, the law begins to care. Today’s Beige Tax is subtle, algorithmic, psychological, and largely invisible. But invisible manipulations are exactly what consumer-protection law was designed to expose.
Closing Thought
Our world didn’t become gray by accident. It became gray because neutrality is profitable. And any time profit hides behind a curated “choice,” consumers deserve clarity—and, when necessary, legal protection.