How Powerful Are Online Mobs?

Let's look at recent online mobs.

The mobs after Hobby Lobby and DropBox lost. Period.

The pro-gay-marriage mob lost the battle of Chik-Fil-A. They won a temporary victory over Duck Dynasty but had to retreat. They got Brendan Eich fired but the result was that Firefox is getting increasingly buggy and losing market share.

The feminist mob after James Damore got him a job offer from Wikileaks.

It looks like we have the equivalent of an aging black-belt who, after losing a fight or two, first picked a fight with a couple of white-belts, drew those, and finally went out into the street to beat up a cripple. (The black belt can get away with it only because the cripple used to be an even worse bully.)

I suspect they're marching against “Nazis,” not only to look noble, but also in order to look powerful.