Maybe that's not cynical enough, maybe it's "Google is looking for the ultimate incentive to join G+. For every G+ post you make, they extend your life by a mon

Maybe that's not cynical enough, maybe it's "Google is looking for the ultimate incentive to join G+. For every G+ post you make, they extend your life by a month". :) Don't be silly. This is hacker news. I am not cynical. I have always wondered why they haven't been more aggressive with respect to such lists. They are potential competition. And, while it would be unethical to filter such mailings, it is in their and in the user's interest to make it easy to unsubscribe from such lists. For users, so that they don't have to go through some annoying steps to unsubscribe, for them to improve their spam filter and to increase the value of GMail ads. By the way, let's not pretend that many of their choices are made to maximise ad revenue, since that is currently their main source of income. And I think it's perfectly fine. The vast majority wants free services and ads are a good way to monetise them. If you don't want ads and/or data mining, there are good alternatives for a few dollars a month.