I think you've hit the nail on the head, to be perfectly honest. Beyond that, the fight is a moving target. A union that forms for this issue would not be the same union as for the next issue, nor would its members uniformly be for or against the next thing in lockstep. This is how political parties splinter, expecting the same members to be mad about whatever the next issue as they were the last, however tenuously related they are.
And beyond the fight itself being so ephemeral, there's no real way to know when it's been won or not. I believe that the FCC's tight-fisted control over what's allowed on what is allowed on network television is gone, and has been for some time. The Supreme Court has shown that they actually value the first amendment pretty strongly in recent years, even when its exercise may have bad side effects, and I think that if the FCC were to try and level fines against a new broadcaster for using the word 'ass' on television or something, it could be fought and the law overturned. But existing broadcasters are relatively complicit in that. The bigger networks don't want their family friendly-mass market television to have to compete with FX, HBO, or whatever other edgier networks are out there on the same spectrum, so they don't make a fuss because the barrier to entry that those broadcasting standards impose is worth paying the occasional small fine for accidental violations.
This is undoubtedly true in some tech arenas as well, and that tech companies - despite their lofty ideals, are finding it hard to find the energy to muster full-throated rebukes of policies that they may dislike ideologically, but maybe derive some small benefit from that their upstart competitors may not.
And beyond the fight itself being so ephemeral, there's no real way to know when it's been won or not. I believe that the FCC's tight-fisted control over what's allowed on what is allowed on network television is gone, and has been for some time. The Supreme Court has shown that they actually value the first amendment pretty strongly in recent years, even when its exercise may have bad side effects, and I think that if the FCC were to try and level fines against a new broadcaster for using the word 'ass' on television or something, it could be fought and the law overturned. But existing broadcasters are relatively complicit in that. The bigger networks don't want their family friendly-mass market television to have to compete with FX, HBO, or whatever other edgier networks are out there on the same spectrum, so they don't make a fuss because the barrier to entry that those broadcasting standards impose is worth paying the occasional small fine for accidental violations.
This is undoubtedly true in some tech arenas as well, and that tech companies - despite their lofty ideals, are finding it hard to find the energy to muster full-throated rebukes of policies that they may dislike ideologically, but maybe derive some small benefit from that their upstart competitors may not.