I can understand why the desktop gets a pass, but I really, really wish they would consider doing it for sites which pop up those damned "Give us your email!!" forms. Especially those sites which pop it up almost immediately when I've arrived at their site for the first time. I don't even know your site yet. Just followed this link from somewhere else. And you're immediately demanding my email for your pointless newsletter?

Maybe it's just me, but I think I hate those things more than anything else on the current web. Maybe even more than autoplay videos.

I agree, though I've unfortunately seen several tests that suggest that they work. The immediate "Give us your email" is much more effective than requests that wait for a certain number of pages, trigger after a certain scroll amount, or wait until you've been on the site for a significant amount of time.

Of the people who see the pop up, the conversion rate is highest for those who see it immediately. And there's not a significant effect on bounce rates.

I have no idea why! I would never simply give my email address to an immediate pop up modal.

They probably think they have to give their email to see the site.

We are power users, a lot of people have no idea what they're doing on the web.

Yes, I even think there's a large amount of users that, when shown a random popup "please enter your password to continue", would just enter the password they use for every service, making phishing quite trivial.

Definitely.

It's like web-designers ignored all the lessons of the pop-up blockers in the 2000s. "Hey, it didn't work then, but maybe if we embed it in the page people will use it!"

Probably because it's a much bigger issue on mobile websites where your ability to click precisely on the 'x' is much lower than when your input device is a mouse or trackpad.

Edit: I am new to HN, why this was downvoted?

And when the loading speed is slow, which makes the layout move, so your attempt to click the [X] accidentally clicks the advert instead, generating income for the site.

(why are you being downvoted? No idea, you make a reasonable, articulate statement, with a credible explanation. Sometimes it just happens on HN. I like to assume people are accidentally clicking the [▼] character by mistake).

Relatively it seems mobile ads cover way more area than when on desktop.