High-Tech Boycotts

Yesterday, I blogged about research on the “Millennials”—the so-called DotCom generation.

I didn’t talk about one really fascinating finding: the tendency of DotCom’s to “vote” with their purchasing power, to boycott products when they disapprove of the company that makes them. As the authors noted, this behavior has not been studied—and it deserves attention.

This is a generation that has grown up in a commercialized environment, so it probably shouldn’t surprise us that so many of them are willing to “vote’ with their dollars. They see corporations as more powerful—and more dangerous—than government, and large numbers of them react by closing their pocketbooks to enterprises they disapprove of.

Now there is evidence that this mechanism for showing disapproval may be going to the next level.

The last couple of weeks, Facebook and other social media have been buzzing with news about a new “app” that will allow your smartphone to identify the company responsible for every item in your grocery basket. If it works, this is huge, because the labyrinthine nature of corporate ownership makes it very difficult to avoid enriching people you don’t like. (Who knew that the Koch brothers own companies that own other companies that produce  Bounce laundry softener sheets?)

File this one under “wait and see.” But it will certainly be interesting!

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