At what point does it not? Pop-ups exist to steal attention. It's abuse. Why do these marketers believe they are entitled to anyone's attention? They are not.

> a business owner can have a very hard time grasping why

Of course. Businesses generally couldn't care less about how much they're abusing their workers or their consumers. The only thing they care about is their profit. Dark patterns are just value extraction mechanisms, it's their abusiveness that makes them dark.

> they can often act like they're simply herding sheep. Users are ephemeral zombies to some, and from that lens, it's totally fine to capture them with sneaky tactics

Yes. It's an inherently abusive and sociopathic view. They don't consider us human beings.