At best it's a Monty-pythonesque nod to the system that got us here in the first place. "I'll write a stern letter" or "down with that sort of thing".
Internet activism is at a high level, universally total bullshit.
Breaking things until businesses suffer is the only way people will listen because there is a financial consequence.
I think that not just Internet activism, but political solutions in general are, at high level, universally total bullshit. As you say, the only way people will listen because there is a financial consequence (people are extremely good at selling themselves out of their values). And a way to reliably inflict financial consequence is through business and technology (and occasional media shitstorms, but that doensn't seem to do much anymore), by redefining the optimization landscape people hillclimb right under their feet.
That's just another way that legislation allows stuff to be manipulated. Why do you think legislators are always all over business and technology? It's a short path to the goal. All that happens is more fuel is added to the fire.
It's gone past "happy happy joy joy" now.
More specifically political solutions beyond a certain modest scale fit that distinction. All of our political issues are scale issues.