This is ridiculous! Of course more people will sign up if you make them only fill out two things and force the popup on them, but it completely devoids the conc

This is ridiculous! Of course more people will sign up if you make them only fill out two things and force the popup on them, but it completely devoids the concept of 'signup' of its meaning. What you should care about is how many people sign up and use your service. If I was presented with a signup popup like that I would just input a fake e-mail address, try it out once and never come back. That's not what a signup is supposed to be.