As someone who's been doing email marketing for a decade, you'd be subscribed by how many people are more than happy to sign up to a mailing list without being "coerced" as you describe.

We get that you don't like marketing email, but plenty of people do.

It's not just my bias. I'm sensitive to it, but I'm regularly added to mailing lists despite my express lack of consent. We all are.

I also regularly walk clients back from doing exactly the same thing. The perks in marketing don't give a flying French Fancy what the law is. They care about absolute volume.

I did a little exercise last year, took a screenshot of every order form I submitted. I reported a dozen companies to the ICO last year, with documented examples of companies wilfully ignoring GDPR regulations.

Yeah, I'm also fun at parties.