Sorry about the wall of text, I'm not so much with a succinct ideas. I honestly think we've all gotten it wrong when it comes to “quiet quitting”, and it's important that we don't let it affect our actions.
My theory is that some group – possibly a news site or whatever – saw that there was rising dissatisfaction in the workforce and a bunch of people were quitting/dissenting in protest. They don't want workers to quit, but they also don't want to improve pay/conditions, so what can they do instead? Well, they can redefine what it means to protest. They coin the term “quiet quitting” – not for the sake of business owners and boomers, but for the sake of the workers that they're fighting against.
Quiet quitting is “to do your job without going above and beyond”. They're positioning this as something that angry workers can do instead of quitting. They're telling us that workers who are unhappy are just doing their jobs, and they're pretending that business owners are mad about that. They say that people are continuing to work in shitty jobs as a form of protest. Does that make any sense to you? It doesn't to me. Do we really believe that anyone is angry or outraged by the fact that workers are doing work?
I don't believe it. If you strip QQ back to its simplest form, they're trying to frame inaction as though it were a form of taking action. They want to normalize the idea that we can stick it to our bosses by continuing to do work as normal.
Maybe I'm overthinking it, but whether you believe me or not, PLEASE DO NOT THINK THAT QUIET QUITTING WORKS. Please don't think that you're going to upset your boss by not quitting. If you're being treated like shit and have the option, QUIT. Don't use this nonsense as a justification for taking the easy route. Quiet quitting is great for businesses, because the more stubborn you are about sticking around, the more they can treat you like shit. The only power you have as a laborer is to withhold you labor, don't let them trick you out of it.