In the past it was quite different and not so effective, also the target is not usually a company but a single person. It is a war towards the weak. Now you can destroy the people life for really futile reasons, so cancel culture acts differently from old-style boycott for technological and sociological reasons. I don't think that the mob assaulting people for old style opinions is the majority of population, the mob is simply organized, funded and have the advantage of being supported by the media. And I don't think that having a mob destroying a person, and his family too, for a different opinion.. is a good way to shape the world, or a shiny path towards a better future. That is the "Gulag method", ah yes sorry, you call it "Language evolution", I forgot it. Finally, for lot of people this is a "culture WAR", in the sense that casualities don't matters, and is the proof that this mob is moved by violence and not compassion.
Language evolves, yes, but lot of people (the majority I suppose) still use and understand "man" in the neutral meaning too; there is a set of people that has "evolved" and tries to impose their evolution with dishonest speaking practices (shame, economic pressure, cancel culture..). This is not language evolution, it is the same as the fascists in Italy in the 19twenties that have pushed/banned the use of specific words in the Italian language (was it evolution? I think you agree it is not). So I don't buy this one, "language evolution" supporters in this case have the same behaviour of religious fundamentalists, they have lot of uncontestable axioms, like a religion, and this is not good. Not good at all.
Man has also the meaning of "human being", gender neutral, why is the concept of context dead? I imagine a quite useless manager who has fun in being offended, and trying to put a guilt on the other people shoulders. IMHO