On boycotts

A recent Bruce Schneier blog post got me thinking about boycotts.  Specifically, the user “AwesomeRobot” made the following comment in response to another user who said they plan to forever boycott Sony due to the rootkits they put on music CDs in 2005:

Boycotts don’t work unless you say you’ll buy from them again when they clean up their act. What’s their incentive to change if you just say you’ll “never” buy from them again?

I boycott Eidos because of their deliberately poor customer service.  The trouble is, how am I to know when they’ve cleaned up their act, if I never interact with them again?

I boycott 1&1 Internet (my former web host) because… well, because of lots of reasons.  But if I avoid them in perpetuity, how am I supposed to know whether my boycott has worked?

Another thought that occurred to me relates to the infamous Left 4 Dead 2 boycott.  Now, I disagree with them about almost everything, and I’ve always maintained that the only way Valve can meet all their demands is to give away Left 4 Dead 2 as free content.  So, AwesomeRobot’s comment applies here, too: if the only way to please the boycotters is to give them stuff for free, what incentive does Valve have to please them?

Boycotts only work when the target has a possibility of earning money from the boycotters by meeting the boycott’s demands.  In my case, I’ll be keeping tabs on Eidos; if they appear to have improved, I’ll end up buying Batman: Arkham Asylum, and everyone wins.

As for 1&1, personally I won’t be going back, because their service simply isn’t a good fit for me anymore; but if they fix the glaring problems that made me leave, I’ll start referring people to them again (and stop telling people to avoid them like the plague).