This post is somewhat inspired by a recent post in this same community called “Is anyone else having trouble giving up Reddit due to content?”
I imagine “Reddit” will be a common answer. (And it’s one of my answers.)
Another of my answers is “Hasbro.” First Wizards of the Coast (a Hasbro subsidiary) tried to revoke an irrevokable license and screw over basically all 3rd-party publishers of D&D content, then they sent literal mercinaries to threaten one of their customers over an order mixup that wasn’t even the customer’s fault. D&D: Honor Among Thieves and the latest Transformers look really good, but those are within the scope of my boycott, so I won’t be seeing those any time soon.
Third, Microsoft. (Apple too, but then I’ve never bought any Apple devices in my life, so it hardly qualifies as a boycott.) Just because of their penchant for using devices I own against me in every way they can imagine. And for really predatory business practices.
One boycott that I’ve ended was a boycott of Nintendo. I was pissed that they started marketing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (though it didn’t have a name at the time) before the WiiU came out, prompting me to be an early adopter of the WiiU, and then when they actually released BotW, they dual-released it on WiiU and Switch. I slightly eased my boycott when the unpatchable Fusee Gilee vulnerability for the first batch of Switches was discovered. I wanted to get one of the ones I could hack and run homebrew on before they came out with a model that lacked the vulnerability.
Nothing. I’ve given up.
I am too small to make a difference, unable to convince others in my life to join, and the companies I want to boycott have grown so big that their brands are everywhere and it’s exhausting to try to keep track of them all. Plus, boycotts are pretty ineffective these days. Even in the most extreme cases, companies now know they only have to wait ~2-3 months before the masses stop caring and move on to something else.
Now I just live my life. I support causes I believe in, try to treat everyone I meet with kindness and respect, and do what I can to give myself and my family a happy, comfortable life. That’s all I can do, it may not be enough to save the world, but it’s enough to save me and those I love