I think you might have misinterpreted his second point. He wasn't railing against the alerts per-se, but having them content free. It wouldn't be too much to as

I think you might have misinterpreted his second point. He wasn't railing against the alerts per-se, but having them content free. It wouldn't be too much to ask for them to put an excerpt of the message in the email, but most sites refuse to do so to 'drive traffic'. (One of the sites I helped build is guilty of this too, so I shouldn't throw stones)