ongoing by Tim Bray · Corporations and EmotionsI think that Tim hits the nail on the head here. An outpouring of vitriol directed solely at BP does nothing to deal with the underlying issues of the industry as a whole. I suspect very strongly that there are no big players in this industry with their hands completely clean of the kind of mismanagement and regulatory manipulation that BP has been accused of.
Boycotting BP does nothing but give market advantage to the other players, but nothing at all to motivate them to change their ways.
Tim’s closing paragraph says it best:
Hating the company has the potential to distract from a larger problem, the immense number of other poorly-regulated oil platforms in the Gulf; is it 4,000 or only 1,500?
And it’s bigger than that; both the current spill and the whole Gulf problem, the more I look at them, seem like symptoms of a deeper disease. You have to treat a disease’s symptoms or they might kill you, but suing BP into oblivion (a good idea if there’s a decent legal case) isn’t going to reduce the big-picture damage contingent on our addiction to unrealistically-priced fossil fuels.
And hating the company, or any company, will just reduce the quality of your life.