I think the difference in the number of participants and base of support is material.

That said, the 2018 protests were definitely more disruptive than this one. 20,000 employees left their desks. [1]

Part of it might also be that several of the organizers of the 2018 walkouts left Google in the months following the walkouts (including Meredith Whittaker, who now runs the company behind Signal).

I think my original argument in the GP is wrong. The more I read about this topic, the more the true narrative seems like "after the 2018 walk-outs, Google took steps to ensure mass political action within the company like the action that tanked Maven would never happen again," and we're now seeing the results of those steps.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Google_walkouts

Walkouts are very different in character. It's a mini-strike, not an occupation. People voluntarily leave their jobs for a day, they don't sit in someone else's workspace and prevent them from doing theirs.

Sure, it's more disruptive to the company because the numbers are larger, but the damage done by each individual ends at not doing their work for the day. It's a statement of "this is what your company will look like if you don't address this" not "we're going to make a scene and hang out in your personal space".

This is a very selective and ahistorical definition of "strike". Strikes regularly block shipping lanes and scab workers from entering so they often prevent others from doing work on a job site.

Have you seen this done in recent years?

I've personally seen AT&T employees go on strike but they were nothing like this. The employees on strike wouldn't go to work, and there were signs and a few people sitting at tables near the entrance to main office buildings in Atlanta, but nothing was blocked and the people there sure seemed more like they were paid by the union to be there and didn't really care at all.

The bigger issue with the term "strike" here is that Google isn't unionized (yes, I know AWU exists, but it's less than 1% of their workforce)

If they were unionised the workers wouldn't have been paid for the walkout, presumably.

Yes but that's the illegal version of strike, which is met with violent law enforcement response.

The recent protest did not interfere with anyone's work. The office space they occupied was otherwise vacant.

The Google walkout wasn't a whole day. It was one outdoor meeting

20K people leave their desks every day for lunch and coffee breaks. The walkout break was outside instead of in the snack room.

Google's militaristic business contracts, and militant protests thereof, have both been ramping up in the past decade.

Google was not founded as a military contractor making targeting systems for missiles. But now they are.