Economic Blackout: Will a 24-hour boycott make a difference?
Economic Blackout: Will a 24-hour boycott make a difference?
An “economic blackout” promoted on social media is underway but with no clear indication of how many people took part or whether retail companies and restaurants will notice any effect from the grassroots protest.
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no
To the people hoping a huge dip in their numbers on this one day will scare them: These megacorporations have set themselves up for consumers to be dependent on them. Even if we have a great turnout for this one-day boycott, it's still a boycott that asks negligible sacrifice from consumers. The corporations won't be worried that a big one-day boycott means consumers are poised to actually do real damage to them.
They'll just go buy what they want tomorrow. By the time the company is reporting quarterly earnings it'll have averaged back into place. Doesn't scare investors at all. Literally zero pressure applied.
And like, do you think anyone of consequence is looking at intra-day sales? By the time anyone actually gets hard data, it will be over.
Honestly I can't think of a better analogy than my toddler having a tantrum in his room holding his breath when I'm not even in the room. He'll have made up for it with some deep breaths after and I won't even know it happened until it's over.
The goal is not to create financial hardship for the company right off the bat. I see it as a means to organize, coordinate, and fire a warning shot.
I look forward to whatever material action is precipitated from this symbolic gesture.
So what do you recommend?
This is what people don't seem to understand.
These boycotts are already priced in. The most you're doing is mildly annoying some financial bean counter in middle management who might have to make a slight adjustment to a month-over-month sales report, and that's only if the boycott happens at the end of the month. Corporations have seen these countless times before, and they also know that at the end of the day, people still need to go out and buy things like food, clothes, gas, medications, etc. And they also know that there is absolutely no appetite for a large-scale extended boycott that would be large enough and last long enough to make a difference; most people couldn't boycott for that long even if they sincerely wanted to (and most don't. They just want to say they did.).
Like you said (and I also said once in a previous post....great minds think alike), it's like a toddler threatening to hold his breath. Yeah, that's nice kid. You've gotta breathe eventually.
What point you are missing is that these corporations are still scared we will organize. Look at how tiktok affected people's views on Gaza. You saw how fast they took control of an app as opposed to the countless problems they could actually be fixing. Getting people used to a different way of life takes time and small acts/habits.
yeah usually the point of a boycott is to put financial pressure on a corporation or institution until specific demands are met
No indeed