I've had some of the same experiences as the author. "Do you work for..." or "You must be a big fan..." And plenty of "How do you... " A few sites actually che

I've had some of the same experiences as the author. "Do you work for..." or "You must be a big fan..." And plenty of "How do you... " A few sites actually check for and prevent you from putting their domain name in as email (probably something about having employees sign up... ?) so that's a bit annoying. I think it's worth it. Among other things, if any one alias becomes tainted enough, I'll throw it on a burner account so those emails go into a black hole, instead of my spam folder. And I'm always using a password manager on a computer, rather than trying to remember email when I visit a retailer. (Often, these days, if I'm in person, I just make up some kind of abbreviation - instead of "Ollies@", "olbgo@" because I don't care too much and even if I forget where it came from, it's not a big deal.) And there's a slight security benefit if one email + password leaks, though these days every password is unique too (was not always the case... ah the naivety of my internet youth.) I don't think email addresses get sold "a lot" but they sure do get breached a lot and end up in the hands of spammers. Cadillac@ actually got sold or breached quite quickly after I signed up for a free car brochure, about a decade ago. With my current host (NameCheap) and Thunderbird, it's very easy to change my from address - it just works without any hassle.