Its ineffectiveness also is tied to what you think their goal is. If you think their goal is to win the hearts and minds of those who are sitting in traffic and missing work, I’d say you’re correct that it’s ineffective. But I’d say that it’s pretty effective in keeping Palestine in the news where it’s been slipping from the front page recently. I’d say that cutting off a major artery for the beating heart of a city will always have some sort of effect on people and companies who make the most money in the city. I’d say that upsetting the status quo was pretty effective. Also, with the sharp increase of anti-protest legislation (which thankfully most of the recent federal legislation has either failed or expired), I’d say it has to be somewhat effective, but in ways that aren’t immediately apparent. Oregon passed a bill that classifies “protests that disrupt daily life” as domestic terrorism. This includes blocking traffic. This is a wild response if you think the protest as just a nuisance. But if they’re majorly disturbing the flow of money, that bill makes way more sense to me (not that I agree with it).

I suppose by your metric climate protests and nuclear disarmament protests back in the day were also ineffective and useless. And sure, the main goals haven’t been met with either group, but I wouldn’t call either ineffective. Being a stepping stone might be their fundamental goal for protesting even though they want big change to happen. But big changes don’t happen unless stepping stones happen first.