> choosing whether to use, or advocate for, a company's services is a form of support
Sure. But if the services are rendered, the ideology is orthogonal. For the slim minority of uncompromising zealots for whom it is not, damages can be quantified and paid.
are you asserting this is the way things should work, or how they do work, or both?
> are you asserting this is the way things should work, or how they do work, or both?
How it does and, to a limited degree, how it should.
If you donate to or volunteer for a non-profit, you have non-pecuniary interest in how they are run.
If you're sold a product that's promised to be made in a certain way, you do too. If you paid for--much less used without paying--a service because you thought it was ethical per some definition, but aren't similarly bound in other purchases in your life, or otherwise can't show this is a value you consistently follow (and so, in being denied it here, have been damaged), I'm not sure any functional economy can work where anyone has a free option to take back a purchase--or much less, non-monetary use--at any time in the future because they feel--but can't materially demonstrate--betrayal.
Like, maybe if Stallman used ChatGPT he could credibly claim he wouldn't have used it if it hadn't marketed its claims around goodness. But I'm deeply sceptical a rando has the same standing.