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It could be. Consumer action affects the company which affects shareholders, so when there's consumer action over what are at the very least unethical practices, shareholders are affected. Both the company and the shareholders get punished - the company for what it's done, and the shareholders for funding the company without a care for its practices.

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Point taken. That's why I am here to sort of point out a counter argument to DHH. He seems to be calling for consumer activism without making a serious case (at least for me) so as to WHY.

There have been allegations of misconduct, fine. Latest there is a sexual harassment claim... Those are VERY attractive to certain class of lawyers. Why not let law take its course? Why do WE, who know nothing of what happened, have to PRE-JUDGE and punish the company upfront?

[vertex-four]

Note that innocent until proven guilty is, largely speaking, something that only applies to Government interactions, like most rights - specifically because the Government can unilaterally do something, but the people need to organise in order to have any significant effect. Or, in other words, judging someone is probably fine since a significant chunk of society would have to come to the same judgement in order to effect any sort of punishment without doing something illegal themselves.

Additionally, innocent until proven guilty isn't even a thing in civil court - all outcomes are on the balance of probabilities. So we still wouldn't know what our Government has to say as to whether it happened or not, just that it more likely happened than not. Even if you have complete trust in the court system to make the right choices, you still have to make your own judgement as to whether or not you think it actually happened (since the court hasn't actually decided that), and then as to whether additional consumer action is necessary.

And this is making the assumption that Susan wants to take it to court, and go through that whole rather horrible process, and have all her dirty laundry dragged out in public for people to spend the next couple of years harassing her over. Uber, of course, being an amoral company with plenty of cash, will be fine whatever the result.