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>If you don't mind, I guess like a sort of prelaunch feedback, what would it take for someone like you, willing to profit on bad corporate behavior, to instead become a leader for change? I think it would take a few things, and I'll try my best to elaborate on why. 1. Ability to affect change.
I like to be successful, its one of my primary drivers in life. If I spend X hours working on some task, I want to see the results. Changing large swaths of people to do anything, is a challenge. So there exists this function of needing to wield enough influence over a large enough population that you influence corporate choices. Until you reach that critical mass, you are insignificant. A company by law exists to make money for shareholders, so expect them to ignore your small voice for a more profitable choice until your voice is large enough that ignoring you is no longer profitable. Same mindset applies to corporate fines. "We the ORG hereby fine your company $100k for this practice allowing you to profit $10MM" Cool... so we made $9.9MM we otherwise wouldn't have made. "So hit me with a fine. We can afford it." -Jaime Dimon.
Back to my original point, few people want to devote their working hours towards a problem they don't feel they can succeed at. You want me on your ship? Convince me my effort has a measurable effect. Make sure the effect is worth my effort. 2. Unified Direction
A centralized boycott platform sounds great in theory, but there are people that want to boycott everything, for every reason you can think of. I guess you'll have an upvote system or some filtering mechanism so the most popular ones get visibility/funding, but you will far eclipse the reasonable number of companies to protest. Everyone has different thresholds, but I doubt I would want to live a life where I'm boycotting your platforms entire top 10 list. Remember the Occupy Wall Street protests? Tons of headlines all over the place, even Presidential comments. Without looking it up, what were their goals? 3. Passion
I would have to care about the issue. Am I going to boycott YCombinator because their CEO built their house on an endangered sand flea population? No, I couldn't care less about the fleas. Would I boycott YCombinator if they decided my murder my family? Yup. Every issue falls somewhere on the scale of "does this matter to me." Its hard to become a leader for changes you don't care about. Some people are selfish, some aren't. Everyone decides for themselves. 4. Fads
This one is almost what I directly referenced in my original comment. Its popular to hate a company for a month, then something else pops up in the news and steals attention. How long do you expect to keep the boycott strong enough to matter? I don't want to be a leader hopping on the latest headlines every 4 months. You solve those problems, and I would be the "leader for change." However, if you've solved those problems, you have no need for me. |
>However, if you've solved those problems, you have no need for me.
You would exactly be they type of person needed, based on the very idea of what you did/have been doing, you are smart, informed and most importantly not afraid to act(literally put your money where your mouth is).
If I could build a platform that successfully addresses these issues it would be nothing without people, same goes for platforms like Uber or even Facebook and Google. The pre-internet examples would be individuals like Gandhi and MLK who obviously solved problems to effect change, but even they were just leaders who relied on the support of people.
I think this second comment of yours is as encouraging/motivating as the first, it just reinforces my belief the opportunity is really about changing attitudes and thoughts about these power dynamics, rather than the power dynamics themselves.