Comic Strips

Businesses seeing a drop in revenue as a result of a random patchwork organized online effort for a temporary boycott won't have any effect?

Of course it can. If businesses see it's possible for people to exercise economic control against them, it makes it just that bit harder for them to expect no resistance going forward. People see the result of their actions and are more likely to engage in other boycotts going forward, and businesses then have to be afraid of future targeted boycotts hitting them harder.

You don't successfully get a company to back down on anything with the threat of a boycott, if that company has no reason to believe you're even capable of boycotting them. Doing something like this makes it abundantly clear that it's possible, and thus increases the likelihood of businesses taking future boycotts seriously.

And if you want to say it won't work, then I'll tell you that as a cashier at a smaller local grocery store, today I saw nearly half of all transactions done in cash (usually it's 1 in every 5-6) to avoid giving credit card companies money, an older woman explicitly mentioning that she was disappointed she had to use her Visa card because she didn't have cash on her, and on top of that, I also saw a reduction in purchases of non-necessities (about a 20-30% overall volume reduction in total purchases) on top of people swapping out brands I'd usually see purchased like Coca Cola with smaller local drinks instead.

If this is what's happening at the small local grocery chain, then you might be able to imagine what was happening (or rather, not happening at all due to people staying home) to the large big box store down the road.