What kind of damage do sonic booms cause?

Xenophile wrote

"And
let's face it, it's hard to turn a profit with a supersonic airplane
if it isn't *allowed* to go supersonic."

I really wonder whether or not that is true. There's some really long
routes out there that are entirely or almost entirely over water, such as
* Los Angeles - Tokyo
* Los Angeles - Sydney
* San Francisco - Tokyo
* San Francisco - Sydney
* New York - Johannesburg
* New York - London
* New York - Paris
* etc.

If the supersonic were fast enough (e.g., over Mach 2), then it would
begin to make sense to have hub traffic from other destinations (e.g.,
subsonic on regulara 757 or something from Atlanta to San Francisco) into
the overseas air gateways (e.g., supersonic from San Francisco to Tokyo).
That wouldn't make sense if the craft were just barely supersonic, because
any shortening of over-the-water time would be negated by connection time
in San Francisco. So, the craft would have to go fast enough over the
water to make up for lost time in connections.

If the craft were fast enough, then the situation might arise for which it
would be quicker to get from San Francisco to Tokyo on the supersonic than
it would be to go subsonic from San Francisco to New York. Wouldn't
that be a kicker? ! Such a capability might be a boost to the Pacific
Rim economies.

Ron