I've been doing this for well over a decade and while I had similar experiences sometimes, I don't see how this was a mistake by any means. Yep, not many compan

I've been doing this for well over a decade and while I had similar experiences sometimes, I don't see how this was a mistake by any means. Yep, not many companies sell or leak your email, but some do. And let's not forget that 10+ years ago we had much worse spam filters. (Though we had less spam as well.) And using a unique email for each provider and company it's pretty easy to block them when they start spamming you or when they give away your address. In theory, one could use generated addresses in some cases. E.g. for throw away ones or when you have to give it in person. The problem is that then you'd have to keep track which one you gave to whom. It also helps with filtering as services may change the from address or use multiple from addresses while you may want to label all email from them the same. Then in some cases, where you do want to make your email public still you want to know how people found you. I think this one would be called "role based addresses". E.g. I think it's pretty nice to have your paypal address as paypal@yourdomain.com (when people were still using them for a lack of alternatives), same for github, etc.