Is the antitech movement obsolete?

Jordan Reznick (left) and Bevan Richardson block a tech bus at a protest over the buses using parking for parents and teachers of Fairmount Elementary School. Jordan Reznick (left) and Bevan Richardson block a tech bus at a protest over the buses using parking for parents and teachers of Fairmount Elementary School. Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Is the antitech movement obsolete? 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Wearing a pig mask and sequined suit jacket, Amy Gilgan stood outside of Davies Symphony Hall on Thursday night to accept the McMansion award at the second annual Crappys on behalf of Jack Halprin, a Google lawyer, landlord and frequent target of San Francisco’s antitech ire.

In sparkles and sneakers, technorati streamed past protesters and into the concert hall for the eighth annual Crunchies Awards, the supposed Oscars of Silicon Valley. Few turned their heads to witness the sidewalk satire. Investor Ron Conway, who last year stood on the Crunchies stage and offered his sympathy to the protesters, buzzed by a group of taxi drivers rallying against Uber. Evening news crews scaled back their coverage.

This year the pig masks were new, but the message was old. The verve of the antitech demonstrators felt diminished, and even they noted that the turnout was low.

“It’s actually kind of a windy night,” offered Gilgan, 32, an academic librarian and one of about 50 protesters. There was also, someone else noted, a chance of rain.

Last year seemed a climax for tensions between tech and the industry’s adopted city — protests of tech shuttle buses, antieviction demonstrations and bars banning Google Glass all made headlines.

Tech nonprofit founder Theresa Preston-Werner kicked off the 2014 Crunchies by chiding the audience for the industry’s “giving problem.” (Her nonprofit, Omakase, was formed to help tech workers make charitable contributions, but now it’s called Codestarter, and helps kids learn how to code.)

“I think the realization of the income gap is now beginning to set in,” Conway said on stage in 2014.

Attitude shift

This year, Conway stood with London Breed, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who represents one of the city’s most progressive districts, as she offered her support to the industry.

“I hear the protesters outside, but to them I say, 'What are your solutions?’” she said. “Divisiveness does not solve problems. I refuse to accept the false choice of us versus them.”

San Francisco’s antitech movement, it appears, has fizzled before it ever really took off.

“As it turned out, after the media had digested our actions, there was no groundswell of support from young people or everyday residents of San Francisco,” said a representative of the Counterforce, an anonymous collective and one of the Bay Area’s most theatrical tech protest groups. “By the middle of 2014, it was clear that only the same small groups would keep acting against the tech industry, and gradually the momentum was halted.”

In April, the group distributed flyers around the home of Google Ventures partner and Digg founder Kevin Rose, calling him a “parasite,” and demanding that Google donate $3 billion to build anarchist colonies around Northern California.

The Counterforce, the representative said, “has long since dissolved.” (The source offered proof of association with the group by temporarily adding an image to kevinroseisaterribleperson.wordpress.com, a website linked to the movement.)

“Just a year ago, it felt like there was a revolution in the streets against tech, and the Luddites were going to storm Twitter just like the storming of the Bastille in France,” said Sam Singer, a public relations crisis consultant. “I wouldn’t say tech is winning the PR battle yet, but it’s certainly on the right road.”

The Counterforce blames the withering of its rebellion on the failure to mobilize young people who “are either captured by the capitalist economy and working full time to pay rent, have been priced out, or are a transplant working for the tech industry.”

Erin McElroy, the face of Eviction Free San Francisco, has noted similar difficulties. Though she points to her group’s success in halting evictions — preventing 12 cases of Ellis Act evictions in 2014, she says — major policy efforts have come up short.

Proposition G, a ballot measure intended to curb real estate speculation that drives up housing costs, and an Assembly bid by Supervisor David Campos, probably the movement’s greatest political ally, both failed at the polls in November.

“There were a lot of policy losses,” McElroy said.

Adrian Covert, strategy director for the Bay Area Council, a business policy think tank, said it also seems like tech companies are “growing up” a little, potentially quelling tensions. “People have moved from having this moment of anxiety and expression, and are moving to thoughtful consideration,” he said.

Civic work

In the past year more companies have at least appeared to make civic and social responsibility more of a priority. Tech companies that use shuttle buses started paying to fund a pilot program studying their impact on Muni bus stops. Silicon Valley firms have publicized their hiring of diversity officers and community liaisons.

And huge donations from tech’s biggest names continued. On Friday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that he and his wife are donating $75 million to San Francisco General Hospital.

Alexa Cortes Culwell, a philanthropy adviser and researcher, said that larger companies have been much more visible in their charitable donations, though the question still remains how much of that giving is translating into “dollars versus public relations.”

“We have seen a much bigger effort on the part of tech companies to join us in the day-to-day and brass-tacks work,” said Karl Robillard, a spokesman for the St. Anthony Foundation, which provides services for the homeless in the Tenderloin. “The climate seems to have shifted from high-profile protests (a la tech bus protests) to one that is focused on hammering out a solution.”

Polling has also suggested that the average San Franciscan doesn’t really blame the tech industry for the city’s increasing lack of affordability. A survey released last month found that more than two-thirds of San Franciscans want city leaders to encourage the industry to expand.

“Politicians would stand in line in rain to have favorables like most of tech companies in San Francisco,” said Sean Clegg, a consultant for Mayor Ed Lee’s re-election campaign, which commissioned the December survey. “Some of the venom has come out, but the effort to make tech the bad guy was always a very steep uphill argument.”

Outside the Crunchies, Marc Bruno, a longtime North Beach activist who ran against current Assemblyman David Chiu for supervisor in 2012, said the antitech movement fell short in part because it failed to win enough potential allies. Tech workers, like the ones he often sees helping feed the hungry at church dinners, could have rallied against industry excess and income inequality, he said. Instead, protests felt like an indictment of techies themselves, hindering the movement.

“We’ve had problems with Ellis Act evictions since long before tech,” he said, holding a sign that featured Ron Conway with devil horns. “I don’t blame it all on tech, they are one part of the problem.”

Google bus

The morning after the Crunchies, about a dozen protesters blocked a Google bus in Bernal Heights. At one point, they obstructed all three lanes of traffic on San Jose Avenue as three shuttles tried to get by. Shouting through a megaphone, McElroy deplored their “settler colonial hyper gentrification.”

Less than 20 minutes after the protest began, a pair of police officers quietly broke up the demonstration. Rain started falling. Most of the demonstrators left.

“I think we still made our point,” McElroy said. “You don’t need a lot of people.”

(Update: Feb. 10, 9:16 a.m.) Story updated to indicate the presence of some TV news crews at the Crunchies.

Kristen V. Brown is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kbrown@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kristenvbrown