sadly sometimes it's e-commerce websites where you actually want to buy their product and they interrupt you three times with "sign up to our newsletter and get 5% off with the code" modals, like they're actively trying to frustrate me into not giving them my money

DuckDuckGo has that feature, too.

But if you truly care about privacy or any kind of control, just don’t use kagi

There was some company a while back, I forget what they were called, but their claim to fame was a much higher click through rate on modal popups due to them “guilting” people with dynamic messages like “No, I don’t want to save up to 50%” or “I would rather let children starve than sign up for this newsletter”.

One, I can’t believe this worked. Two, some website owners were convinced that being patronizing towards visitors was worth the extra clicks.

Quite true. Sundar Pichai got his start on the path to fame at Google by getting the Google Toolbar install injected into things like the Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Flash installers. Look at him now.

What I've seen lead to success:

* Arrogance

* Overconfidence

* Schmoozing with the right people

* Doing flashy work, whatever that means in a given situation

What I have seen lead to failure or, at best, being undervalued and ignored:

* Caring about teammates and your future self

* Caring about the end user and the business itself, when it conflicts with something sales, marketing, or a PM want

* Creating resilient, well-engineered systems

It's the same problem as anywhere else. Well-crafted systems are invisible and taken for granted. Saving the day by putting out a fire is applauded, even when you're the one who laid out the kindling and matches. Managers at all levels care about their own ego more than the company, product, or team.

Maybe I just spent too much time with ex-Microsoft hacks.

For the cookies you have the Consent-O-Matic plugin. For the rest Ublock Origin is pretty effective with the optional Annoyances lists switched on.

You forgot to sub to push.

For a while I would put “f***yournewsletter@gmail.com” but then I realized no one would ever see it, and it probably just helps their click numbers.

I detest newsletter modals.

It’s because they care about your privacy, they want you to know just how much their care, so much so they’re ready to show you popups /s.

The market did choose it's most optimal. The real burning question is who's the customer.

> She would see 'sign up now for 20% off!' and smile! like it positively hit her like she just won the lottery

If you intend to purchase an item from the merchant anyway, why would you pass on 20% off?

I sign up for newsletters to get a discount then immediately unsubscribe. If merchants are going to offer a discount for me to input my email, copy the code they email me, and GMail unsubscribe why would I turn that down?