7 ms·

Would anyone ever sign up for a fucking newsletter from the first god damn second they open a website? Why do they do this? What kind of a stupid purpose does i

Would anyone ever sign up for a fucking newsletter from the first god damn second they open a website? Why do they do this? What kind of a stupid purpose does it have other than annoying users?

d-lisp 3y ago
Note that if you close the modal and read the article and then reload the page, it doesn't appear anymore. Which is weird; weird to ask for a newsletter subscription when you never saw any content yet, weird that this modal doesn't exist anymore after this.
satvikpendem 3y ago
Yes, many non-technical people do. If it didn't work, the people who add that popup wouldn't keep doing so.
- rendaw 3y ago
  You're assuming that everything is run by purely logical data-driven statistics-oriented leaders with accurate models and methodologies.
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    That is what many marketers do, yes. I've worked in ads, I know how it works. If the numbers aren't there, they usually don't continue.
    - chillbill 3y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization
      - satvikpendem 3y ago
        At what point is the faulty generalization simply...a true generalization? Just because you don't want to believe it's true doesn't mean it's not true.
        chillbill 3y ago
        [flagged]
        dang 3y ago
        Yikes, you've been breaking the site guidelines so badly that we have to ban the account—especially because we already asked you to stop. It's not ok to be abusive like this on HN, no matter how wrong someone is or you feel they are. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
    - prerok 3y ago
      That is true, but IME only if it incurs costs. In this case, however, a pop-up on your own site costs nothing. In fact, removing it incurs costs in development time, even if it's a simple line delete. So, I am 100% sure no marketer would ever push for removing it, unless end-users specifically tell them that they are not going to use the site because of the pop-up. The likelihood that they realize that on their own is next to zero because of the difficulties in retention analysis to catch this.
      - satvikpendem 3y ago
        I'd say if their click through rate to the actual article (aka bouncing off the page instead of clicking the close button and continuing to read the article) is low, they'd likely remove it. At least that's how I've been able to convince certain marketers about the inefficacy of their tactics. But other things, like modals to subscribe to the newsletter that pop up after reading the content half-way, simply work too well to ever give up.
        prerok 3y ago
        Now, that is a different take. You have been able to convince them. It's not like they realized this themselves, or that they deduced something from the numbers. Again, only my experience at past employers, but in a lot of cases the developers don't get heard when making these suggestions.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  What does "technical" have to do with it?
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    Technical people often complain about popups and other marketing practices, not realizing that the vast majority of people aren't technical and do not complain, much less care, about such practices. They'll click the close button on the popup and move on.
    - skywal_l 3y ago
      But technical people ofter block JS by defaut which prevent the button from closing the popup. Fortunately, reader mode on firefox solves the problem.
      - satvikpendem 3y ago
        The "they" in my second sentence is about non-technical people, not technical people, I should have clarified. Regardless, the number of people who use the internet and who actively block JS by default is a fraction of 1%.
    - cgriswald 3y ago
      They definitely care. They’re just not empowered to do anything about it It’s ubiquitous and technical solutions are not available to the non-technical.
      - satvikpendem 3y ago
        I can tell you from experience, they really do not care. It's not even something that crosses their minds. You can see for yourself, ask 100 non-technical people you know about stuff like ads and popups. I bet over 50% of them simply do not care. It is a technical person's bias to think they do.
        3y ago
andalemono 3y ago
Didn't paper mags come with subscription cards?
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Those don't hover over the first article you try to read.
cookiengineer 3y ago
Hint: Use abuse@ emails and they will stop doing this on their own :)
- nottheengineer 3y ago
  Some context for those wondering: Those are reserved aliases for google. If you send a mail go abuse@company.com and they use google, that mail will be receiced by google (and the company if they have that set up). It's intended for reporting spam sent out by company.com email addresses. Not entirely sure how it works, but I assume sending newsletters to that causes some automatic sanctions for the company that are a massive headache to resolve.
  - rgoulter 3y ago
    https://support.google.com/a/answer/178266?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/answer/178266?hl=en This is if the domain (company.com) is managed by Google.
  - ninjin 3y ago
    No, abuse@ is not some sort of Google invention but to the best of my knowledge was an informal convention that then got formalised in RFC 2142 [1] in 1997 along with many other common mailbox names. If Google sets this up automagically for their users it is great, but they are merely continuing this long tradition. [1]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2142.txt https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2142.txt
- sixstringtheory 3y ago
  TIL. There’s gotta be a browser extension for this!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
defanor 3y ago
Worse yet while browsing with JS off by default: the popup shows up, but cannot be closed (and does not work for subscription, either), only obscuring the page.
- perihelions 3y ago
  Disable CSS too and it's fixed. :) "Perfection is achieved... when there is nothing left to take away"

Would anyone ever sign up for a fucking newsletter from the first god damn second they open a website? Why do they do this? What kind of a stupid purpose does it have other than annoying users?

d-lisp 3y ago

Note that if you close the modal and read the article and then reload the page, it doesn't appear anymore. Which is weird; weird to ask for a newsletter subscription when you never saw any content yet, weird that this modal doesn't exist anymore after this.

satvikpendem 3y ago

Yes, many non-technical people do. If it didn't work, the people who add that popup wouldn't keep doing so.

rendaw 3y ago
You're assuming that everything is run by purely logical data-driven statistics-oriented leaders with accurate models and methodologies.
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  That is what many marketers do, yes. I've worked in ads, I know how it works. If the numbers aren't there, they usually don't continue.
  - chillbill 3y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      At what point is the faulty generalization simply...a true generalization? Just because you don't want to believe it's true doesn't mean it's not true.
      - chillbill 3y ago
        [flagged]
        dang 3y ago
        Yikes, you've been breaking the site guidelines so badly that we have to ban the account—especially because we already asked you to stop. It's not ok to be abusive like this on HN, no matter how wrong someone is or you feel they are. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
  - prerok 3y ago
    That is true, but IME only if it incurs costs. In this case, however, a pop-up on your own site costs nothing. In fact, removing it incurs costs in development time, even if it's a simple line delete. So, I am 100% sure no marketer would ever push for removing it, unless end-users specifically tell them that they are not going to use the site because of the pop-up. The likelihood that they realize that on their own is next to zero because of the difficulties in retention analysis to catch this.
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      I'd say if their click through rate to the actual article (aka bouncing off the page instead of clicking the close button and continuing to read the article) is low, they'd likely remove it. At least that's how I've been able to convince certain marketers about the inefficacy of their tactics. But other things, like modals to subscribe to the newsletter that pop up after reading the content half-way, simply work too well to ever give up.
      - prerok 3y ago
        Now, that is a different take. You have been able to convince them. It's not like they realized this themselves, or that they deduced something from the numbers. Again, only my experience at past employers, but in a lot of cases the developers don't get heard when making these suggestions.
Dylan16807 3y ago
What does "technical" have to do with it?
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Technical people often complain about popups and other marketing practices, not realizing that the vast majority of people aren't technical and do not complain, much less care, about such practices. They'll click the close button on the popup and move on.
  - skywal_l 3y ago
    But technical people ofter block JS by defaut which prevent the button from closing the popup. Fortunately, reader mode on firefox solves the problem.
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      The "they" in my second sentence is about non-technical people, not technical people, I should have clarified. Regardless, the number of people who use the internet and who actively block JS by default is a fraction of 1%.
  - cgriswald 3y ago
    They definitely care. They’re just not empowered to do anything about it It’s ubiquitous and technical solutions are not available to the non-technical.
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      I can tell you from experience, they really do not care. It's not even something that crosses their minds. You can see for yourself, ask 100 non-technical people you know about stuff like ads and popups. I bet over 50% of them simply do not care. It is a technical person's bias to think they do.
      - 3y ago

andalemono 3y ago

Didn't paper mags come with subscription cards?

Dylan16807 3y ago
Those don't hover over the first article you try to read.

cookiengineer 3y ago

Hint: Use abuse@ emails and they will stop doing this on their own :)

nottheengineer 3y ago
Some context for those wondering: Those are reserved aliases for google. If you send a mail go abuse@company.com and they use google, that mail will be receiced by google (and the company if they have that set up). It's intended for reporting spam sent out by company.com email addresses. Not entirely sure how it works, but I assume sending newsletters to that causes some automatic sanctions for the company that are a massive headache to resolve.
- rgoulter 3y ago
  https://support.google.com/a/answer/178266?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/answer/178266?hl=en This is if the domain (company.com) is managed by Google.
- ninjin 3y ago
  No, abuse@ is not some sort of Google invention but to the best of my knowledge was an informal convention that then got formalised in RFC 2142 [1] in 1997 along with many other common mailbox names. If Google sets this up automagically for their users it is great, but they are merely continuing this long tradition. [1]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2142.txt https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2142.txt
sixstringtheory 3y ago
TIL. There’s gotta be a browser extension for this!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

defanor 3y ago

Worse yet while browsing with JS off by default: the popup shows up, but cannot be closed (and does not work for subscription, either), only obscuring the page.

perihelions 3y ago
Disable CSS too and it's fixed. :) "Perfection is achieved... when there is nothing left to take away"