Awesome. Not overly surprised that someone with years of experience can manage what they're subscribed to AND identify those sites that won't abuse the implied trust in handling that email address :)

Agreed, spam prevention has come a long way on both the client-side (gmail) and regulations (CAN-SPAM), forcing clear unsubscribe paths. Yes, the damage of past behaviour is hard to reverse.

Next generation of users don't allot much attention to email, so liking/following is the way to "subscribe to product info". Otherwise, those exclusively email-based popovers are just a nuisance to that audience; good ones include other channels.