I have a possibly dumb and probably naive question about the protests today

The general disheartening vibe is that no one who needed to hear the protests actually cared about the protests. Is there some middle ground between the protesting today and """inciting violence"""? It just kind of seems like protesting strictly within the guidelines established through talks with group leaders and police is their version of protesting. No one was inconvenienced and nothing was disrupted, all while cops got to rake in overtime checks from the shadows. So I guess here's the naive part: what was accomplished?