Even if that’s true (I’m not convinced it’s unambiguous), my points still stand: Are undiscerning readers the kind of subscribers you really want? Perhaps so if you are, as per my last paragraph, the kind of person concerned with profit over quality. If you are, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you don’t see removing stuff as obvious and your mind only thinks of adding more junk.
> In my post history, I asked about newsletters and newsletter popups, and a few people confirmed that they work really well.
Ignoring for now that’s 100% anecdotal and that “a few people” is far from enough to make definitive claims, what post history are you referring to? Do you have a link?
> The goal is to get paying customers. We discerning readers are the high effort, low reward cohort that aren't worth losing sleep over.
I understand that. I’m lamenting we live in a world where we find it acceptable to purposefully produce shit to exploit others.
You're being overly pessimistic. It's not exploitation. You ask people if they want a thing and they say yes. It works predictably better than not shooting your shot.
Call it anecdotal evidence if you will. The matter of fact is that it seems to work well enough for people to keep doing it.
> You ask people if they want a thing and they say yes.
You call it asking, I call it nagging. And “yes” isn’t the only answer, there’s also “you annoyed me so much I’ll actively avoid you”. Have you never seen one-star reviews saying “the app keeps nagging me to review”? These have business consequences, it’s far from all positives as your responses imply.
> The matter of fact is that it seems to work well enough for people to keep doing it.
That’s like the old maxim that “nobody gets fired for buying IBM”. Just because “everybody does it” does not mean it’s the optimal approach. Things change and people get wise to common bullshit, even as this kind of “knowledge” and “best practices” keeps being shared by money-hungry pariahs. No one really tests these assumptions in depth, they just share them uncritically. If you’re so sure it’s the best approach, let’s see the data. Otherwise let’s just be honest and say we don’t know.
