I used to think, "I'll stop shopping here! They'll change their policies!", and yeah, nope, what happens is the company just leans into the customers that remained. So my "boycott" didn't do anything but deprive me of something I wanted.
However, I decided that, at least for a certain set of things, my desire for the thing can be outweighed by my desire not to contribute to something.
So boycott's aren't about me changing a company's policies, they're about me allocating my resources towards the things I want to see in the world.
Boycotts don’t work unless they are organized and articulate a concrete demand. I respect boycotts that have an organization behind them and a clear end goal, even if that goal may be far off.
When organizers ask for a boycott that may take years, their goal should be worthy to justify the consumer pain. BDS is a good example, it will take a while but stopping the apartheid Israeli regime is good.
I used to think, "I'll stop shopping here! They'll change their policies!", and yeah, nope, what happens is the company just leans into the customers that remained. So my "boycott" didn't do anything but deprive me of something I wanted.
However, I decided that, at least for a certain set of things, my desire for the thing can be outweighed by my desire not to contribute to something.
So boycott's aren't about me changing a company's policies, they're about me allocating my resources towards the things I want to see in the world.