Anti‑awards as governance pressure

When coalitions of repair, consumer‑rights, environmental and digital‑liberty groups hold 'Worst in Show' awards at trade expos (CES), they create an organized, public accountability mechanism that highlights design harms—unfixability, surveillance creep, data extraction, planned obsolescence—and pushes manufacturers, platforms and regulators to respond. This tactic aggregates reputational cost into a concentrated signal that can shape product roadmaps, consumer awareness, and regulatory interest. — If watchdog anti‑awards scale, they become a low‑cost, high‑leverage governance tool that steers industry norms on repairability, privacy, security and sustainability without new legislation.