A demonstration for te boycott of South African oranges in 1970s the Netherlands
Featured image: via historischnieuwsblad.nl

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Why making ourselves worse off feels so good — dissecting the boycott paradox

The latest Twexit wave (numerous users leaving the social media platform still known to many as Twitter) is, in essence, a form of boycotting. An evolutionary economics perspective might help explain this curious phenomenon

Koen Smets
6 min readJan 10, 2025

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I remember, many decades ago, learning for the first time about the practice of ‘boycotting’. The Dutch anti-apartheid movement’s had started a campaign for consumers to shun South-African Outspan oranges, and this had been replicated in Belgium. I have no data on whether it was economically impactful, but with the memory still so vivid, it was definitely a success for me as an awareness raiser. Boycotting is alive and well, most recently in the shape of the latest exodus from the Twitter/X. Now, as then, the boycott is unrelated to the features or quality of the product itself. It concerns, in effect, the deliberate non-consumption of a perfectly adequate product. Even if a substitute (which necessarily has to be inferior) is bought, this logically implies a welfare loss. Boycotters deliberately take a hit. Isn’t that odd?

Making yourself worse off

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Koen Smets
Koen Smets

Written by Koen Smets

Accidental behavioural economist in search of wisdom using insights from (behavioural) economics in organization development. On Twitter/Bluesky as @koenfucius

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