The Power of People and the Necessity for Choice

Molly Katchpole has become an Internet sensation—and a real people’s champion. Katchpole is the 22-year-old who led the charge against Bank of America, which capitulated to a public campaign against a planned monthly $5 fee on debit card transactions, in an about-face on September 29.

“I heard the news about the fee and was like, ‘That is it. I'm sick of this,” Katchpole said. She is a recent college graduate who lives paycheck-to-paycheck in Washington, D.C.

“On the one hand, [Bank of America] is running a business, but on the other hand, it is people’s money they are working with, and some people don't have a lot of money. It's not like they are just selling toothbrushes—it goes much deeper than that."

Katchpole petitioned Bank of America’s president and CEO Brian T. Moynihan to reverse the $5 fee decision. On October 1, Katchpole’s online petition on Change.org had attracted 100 signatures; by the 30th, it had more than 300,000.

The Bank waved the white flag on November 1, surrendering to people power and stating that it will not implement a debit usage fee.

Okay, America, I didn’t know you felt so strongly.

"We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee," said David Darnell, Bank of America’s co-chief operating officer. "Our customers' voices are most important to us. As a result, we are not currently charging the fee and will not be moving forward with any additional plans to do so."

Talk about a big victory for the little guy (or girl)! And it isn’t the first. You can point to successful digital advocacy campaigns in the last couple of years that have squashed rebranding campaigns by Gap and Tropicana, altered AT&T’s iPhone upgrade policy, benched EA Sports’ basketball franchise, and had Netflix promise it was “done with price changes.”

Consumers can choose where to spend their hard-earned paychecks; naturally, these big businesses bowed to consumer demands—and fast.

Harvard Business Review’s Rita McGrath sees the Bank of America backtrack as a case study in tone deafness, and believes the multinational banking corporation made two critical missteps. First, the debit card fees struck many as unfair since they were not proportional to use, and second, Bank of America miscalculated whether their competitors would follow—they didn’t.

McGrath points to the example of airline baggage fees, what she calls a “tolerable” feature. Flyers must fly, and since baggage fees are practically the industry standard, flyers don’t have much of a choice, so they begrudgingly pay up. On the other hand, Bank of America’s $5 fee was nominal to some, but intolerable to many more.

“Unfortunately for Bank of America, the other banks took one look at the angry hordes and decided to back off,” according to McGrath. “The revenue raised was simply not worth the risk of customer anger.

“So B of A was stranded with a vastly unpopular program in a very competitive, low-interest-rate market where having lots of deposits is a competitive advantage. It was a symbolic as well as a substantive disaster.

“It reinforced the image of greedy banks seeking to stick it to their customers. It didn't help that the daily headlines about ‘Occupy Wall Street’ were raising people's consciousness about the unfairness of wealth distribution.”

I particularly like the angle that Brad Tuttle took in Time magazine. He wrote that Bank of America’s biggest mistake was that it “gave customers good reason to shop around for other banking options.” People have continued to do so, even after Bank of America dropped its debit card fee; independent banks have seen a huge spike in new accounts since the fees were first proposed.

Katchpole—like many Americans like her—didn’t have to bank with Bank of America, so she jumped ship. She cut up her debit card on camera and moved her money to a community bank. She saw injustice and fought it quickly, peacefully, and digitally, making her a symbol of hope in the age of Wall Street occupation.

The understated takeaway is that the social networking “revolution”—or any revolution for that matter—can’t happen unless people have a choice.

That choice is the core mission of social entrepreneurship, the key piece to creating an “Everyone A Changemaker” world. It’s impossible to end poverty, reverse environmental degradation, or reduce income inequality if those most directly affected don’t have any options—for microloans or clean energy or meaningful employment.

“To live is to choose,” said Nobel Prize winner Kofi Annan, in a commencement address to the MIT Class of 1997. “But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there."

Give people the opportunity to choose, to stand strong and to live better. If we do, then we can change.