We almost killed the infection with anti-bullying campaigns, we almost did it, but we didn't finish our round of antibiotics. Now it's back, harder than ever; we call it 'cancel culture' and researchers are still working on the cure.
Cancel culture is only bad because of the mob mentality internet nerds have. There's nothing inherently wrong with not liking someone's actions and deciding not to buy shit from them anymore.
I think boycotts have more in common with cancel culture than not. It's still a group of people coming together and basically saying, "let's shun this individual/company". The biggest difference is that for better or worse cancel culture gets immediate results