On protests

[shirei_shibolim]

It seems like this happens every few months. Someone decides it's time to teach OPEC and the gasoline industry a lesson, and announces that on some arbitrary date all Americans should refrain from buying gas for their cars. The theory is that this would horribly disrupt the companies' internal economies, thus showing them that the consumers are the

Comments

[thevortex]

Since some advertising revenue is based on clicks, rather than placement, a content boycott could be even MORE pointless. If you don't like the ads, don't click them...Oh, right! Most of us don't anyway. And, for those adds that are based on numbers of views, the fluctuation is so significant that you would need an extensive number of LJers to make the point (say, two standard deviations below the mean number of views).

This holds likewise for most effective boycotts. All of the ones that you cited reduced use by a significant amount. I would venture that the time frame is not necessarily important, as long as there is no compensatory spike. For example, set April 2nd as "no car day" and have everyone do what they would have done anyway without using a car, to whatever extent this is humanly possible. But again, you would need significant participation, probably on the scale of millions, before OPEC would sit up and take notice. And, as you pointed out, we are too dependent on oil for that to really work, even without the

[pocketnovel]

Oh, the reason most people are throwing a conniption is that LJ no longer allows the creation of basic (no ads, no pay) accounts, all new accounts have to be plus or paid accounts.

[shirei_shibolim]

So this is all about not wanting ad banners? Forget I even said anything.

I like those dancing people.

[hatam_soferet]

I think it's partly that the owners snuck in this change - which, be fair, is sort-of a fundamental conceptual shift - without going through the appropriate processes, whatever those are. Still, yes, one-day boycott: silly. "We wish to protest, therefore we will be very quiet for one day" - yeah, right.