Back in my political days (in Canada, circa 1990), there was this axiom:

For every letter coming to the government to complain about something (for whatever reason), there were another 400 people thinking the same way but just did not have drive to write a similar letter.

So actual letters had some leverage in influencing public decision makers.

But in 1990, we were transitioning from typewriters to word processers. We had no email. Letters required effort and expense (stamps). These days, it is not a problem for one person to send off hundreds of emails.

How are such political tools for average people working these days?