See how well that has worked over the past 40 years? I mean don’t buy shit you don’t support obviously but don’t expect a personal boycott or even advocating heavily for others to the same to have any kind of impact whatsoever.

It’s because the average consumer is dumb but this isn’t an indictment of the average consumer, necessarily. The average consumer doesn’t want to have to do research on every fucking thing they buy to find out the nefarious bullshit about it. Oh the tv doesn’t support open connection standards, oh my phone is a walled garden built for data collection, oh this smart lightbulb is a privacy nightmare with bullshit tos and also has security issues, etc. They just want to go on amazon or to home depot or whatever and buy shit that looks like it will do what they need for a price point they can afford.

That’s where regulatory oversight comes in: given the above and a consistent lack of consumer ability to enforce standards we need political oversight to pick up the slack. This is a unified arm where a consumer frustration can turn into action much more quickly, even if sales continue because of market fuckery (eg tvs still selling because you can only buy hdmi TVs). But unfortunately we live in a country where the tech industry has performed a near and total regulatory capture and has no fear that regulatory oversight will ever occur, and they’re probably right, at least for now.

So you’re wrong that it’s the only way, and I would argue it’s the most ineffective and inefficient way. It just feels like it’s the only way because of our failed state political situation where even a regulatory concern that should be a slam dunk like right to repair often either fails or only passes in a greatly neutered state because the local politicians thought Microsoft and Apple made some great points about preventing local jobs so that tech billionaires could continue to make even more money