I think you’re right that the best response is no response, but the protests do have an effect beside driving traffic. Investors won’t want to be involved in a company at war with its userbase, so if protests are loud and long enough it could mess us reddits IPO plans. So for the users who just aren’t ready to give up reddit, spamming protest comments is probably their best bet.
That’s because it’s the only one ppl will mention as an alternative. Stop telling ppl to try mastodon, tell them to try firefish or akkoma.
Also, the jump effect is way overstated. Some users do end up moving to other software, but many more just leave because they don’t like mastodon.