It would at least be harder. It's a lot easier to sell "click ok to make the pop-up go away" than "go into the overflow menu, then click 'subscribe to notificat

It would at least be harder. It's a lot easier to sell "click ok to make the pop-up go away" than "go into the overflow menu, then click 'subscribe to notifications'". Since users tend to choose the path with the lowest friction, they'll probably prefer to find a way to close a pop-up. The instructions also make it very clear what the user would sign up for. Bonus: Don't even let the web app know whether the user has subscribed to make it impossible to force.