The most famous example is probably candles, especially in England (or at least, the research has been done for England).

Medieval Christians used to buy candles in bulk and donate them, so to speak, to churches. The candles served as a concrete, material link for the real purpose of the accompanying financial donation: for the chantry priests to say prayers for the soul of the gift-giver or the gift-giver's deceased relatives.

When Protestant ideology scrapped purgatory and the whole idea of prayers for the dead, candles lost their central role in donations to the church. The economics of candlemaking in the 16th century made for an interesting financial impact. Rather than bankrupting a few commercial candlemakers, the shift did a little damage to a lot of families. Candlemaking, it turns out, was often an in-home, side business run by urban gentry women in addition to helping out their husbands' craft shops. Thus, it had generated helpful extra income for many families, who now had to look for something else (at a time when other, formerly petty in-home industries like ale-brewing were being replaced by larger, commercial enterprises) or try to make their main family business more profitable to make up for the new lack.