IMHO only -- I don't claim to be representative of any other planteater but myself -- it sought holistic, transformative change. Rather than just "eat less meat" (like Meatless Mondays, which is supposed to be a stepping stone), it was maybe more aligned with the Slow Food movement (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Food) in that it wanted people to think about how our food systems are connected to not just animal treatment (factory farms, tiny cages) but our communities, our economy, our politics, and ultimately our view of our place in the world (atop it, or within it). I'm not going to dive too deep into that because it would easily be an hours-long discussion, but suffice to say that it viewed animal suffering as the symptom of a systemic disease, the tip of a rotten iceberg, resulting from a disconnected and exploitative experience rooted in modern capitalism. It's not just about whether laying hens have enough space, but the workers behind them, the communities that host the farms, the politics that arise from urban-rural divides into food production vs consumption, agriculture as an economic sector and political force, and ultimately how we as a society treat not just animals but each other and the lands we occupy.
Fast forward to 2021, you have meat conglomerates like Tyson creating brands like Raised & Rooted, which sells nuggets that are half-chicken and half-plant. Ostensibly this decreases the need for as many chickens (or else they're producing only half-dead chickens), but it doesn't really work that way; AFAIK (and I admit I am not a market expert, just an interested bystander) their chicken production is still growing (https://craft.co/tyson-foods/metrics), and the Frankenuggets are just an additional snack item on top of their existing product lines. It supplements the cruelty, the icing on top of the torture, rather than seeking any sort of transformative change.
And by and large the market is headed more and more that way, towards industrial food conglomerates buying up or creating in-house vegan brands to add a greener sheen to their bloody enterprise, without actually changing the way they do business or the way they treat any vulnerable part of the system.
Veganism as its core was, in my opinion, about consuming LESS so that others may live more. Plant-based foods, as a health & diet craze, is more about supplementing your existing diet (and profit) with more manufactured products that ultimately come from the same industrial giants that made it all fucked up to begin with.
It's the difference between back-to-the-land whole-food farming/eating and Soylent, the vegan artificial meal drink.
But that's just my interpretation. Others are free to disagree.
Within that bigger context, though, are plant-based foods still a net improvement even if they don't drive transformative change? It's dubious to me. I think it encourages a mindset akin to recycling: "just do it, don't think about it" in that both are minimally impactful in and of themselves, but make people feel good that they're doing it. I forget the scholarly term for it but there's a body of research suggesting that if you can provide a small action for people to take to alleviate their guilt over something, they're less inclined to make bigger, transformative changes to their lives. Anybody can pick up a package of Frankenuggets and think they're doing the world a favor, and that's enough. But does it result in a net decrease in meat or dairy production? Not as far as I know, but if there is an analysis on this, I would love to be informed.
Regarding the dairy bankruptcy, actually I did not know that, and reading more (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/01/06/borden-da...), they do cite the rise in plant-based alternatives as one factor in their continuing decline. So maybe it does help? I know that would contradict my earlier points, but data is data. Personally I would be skeptical of too quickly attributing plant-based foods as the major determining factor in that, but time will tell. It's easier for capital to introduce new product lines that match consumer fashions than for executives to reexamine their values. But if I'm wrong, just let me know.