I think it’s super naive to assume that users actually want any of that crap. If your sign up process was pick a username, optionally enter an email and/or phone for account recovery, and a default unchecked box labeled “and also email me about product updates” what percentage users do you think you would actually check that box? I’d put money on less than 5%.

I uncheck every one of those boxes and still have to deal with companies spamming me despite my intent. I even made a little Apps Script that marks every message with a specific label as spam so I can feel petty and maybe hurt their deliverability.

This is exactly what we have and yet it’s closer to 40%. Form here [0].

I was baffled as well but I suspect this is an engineer/introvert bias that doesn’t translate as much to the rest of the world.

(We also have decent engagement numbers with our newsletter weeks after signup.)

[0]: https://monitoro.app/getting-started

Not to discredit your efforts, but I do wonder if this is because the checkbox is at the bottom of the registration field.

Usually, the checkboxes below the password are "I agree to the terms and conditions" and "I've read the privacy statement", neither of which anyone ever does, but everyone checks the boxes anyway because that's what's required to sign up for most websites. I've found myself automatically checking those boxes recently, because many of these newsletter "opt-ins" are required fields (which probably violates some kind of digital law but who's going to enforce this stuff anyway).

I wonder what your statistics would look like if instead your login form would show a new, ignorable screen with two buttons (inform me about updates over email vs don't inform me about updates over email or similar). I think you'd see lower percentages of sign ups, but probably better engagement numbers.

This might benefit your business in another way as well, because people have the annoying tendency not to understand what the term "spam" really means, and click "report as spam" on any email or newsletter they don't recognise (even after explicitly signing up for them weeks before). This causes your messages to get reported, which is terrible for your domain's email reputation, and your customers might even to get annoyed that you're "still" sending them email. Gmail added a "report as spam and unsubscribe from list" popup, probably especially for this reason.

    [ ] I have read the privacy statement and consent to bla-bla-bla …
    [ ] I have read the terms and conditions and agree to bla-bla-bla donate my firstborn's left kidney …
    [ ] I want you to spam me with information about updates I don't care about bla-bla-bla …

At this point of many a registration form I am already in stop-wasting-my-time-just-let-me-in/send-me-the-stuff-I-bought/book-that-room mode. Not ticking that last box takes a non-negligible amount of focus right after I've finished filling a form with actual relevant information related to the service. I imagine many not-so-technical users will just check all the boxes automatically.

You can easily verify this by placing that third opt-in somewhere else on the form well away from the must-read opt-ins for stuff no one reads, and giving it a different styling more in line with its message (like the buttons suggested by jeroenhd). I'll bet the numbers of opt-in subscribers will drop significantly.

> not to understand what the term "spam" really means, and click "report as spam"

Some services (like Facebook) require a login to unsubscribe. It is easier to click "spam" than to remember the password.

The person receiving the messages should always be able to unsubscribe without authenticating as the account owner. They may not have ever had the password, never mind being able to remember it. If I was receiving unwanted emails from some service that wouldn't let me unsubscribe without logging in, I would consider that spam for sure.

Just +1ing that these numbers are things I've seen personally. I've also seen ~3%.

Your audience matters immensely. And you can't always predict your audience - a lot of initial growth is somewhat organic, and that can take many forms. If you've somehow managed to make huge inroads to Philippine-island knitting clubs and have heavily invested visitors trying things out and checking that box... rejoice and make the most of it.

Or then it is just that people have been trained to click boxes as other one contain ToS. They don't even read the text next to it...

As mentioned, people are engaging with our newsletter (nobody unsubscribed) but who knows! You might be right.

why not use a throwaway

don't be too proud of this technological terror you have constructed (death star reference)

what about small companies trying to get user feedback

if you don't want emails, use a throwaway. hurting deliverability of legitimate businesses is no cool amigo

> hurting deliverability of legitimate businesses

If I haven’t opted in, then it’s spam, not legitimate business, and reporting it as spam is the right thing to do. This is the entire point of spam reporting functionality – to hurt the deliverability of spam.

> You have no longer way to contact them for feedback or updating them on new releases.

Exactly. I find it annoying that providing my email address is considered free license to email me whenever a service wishes. I really only want it there for account recovery or transactional mail.

I hate that what's considered necessary transactional/'service update' is up to the service provider too though.

I use a pretty scammy credit score tracker thing in the UK, (it's not at all like it is in the US, not even a single 'it', but this service would love you to think 'it' is) just to keep an eye on for fraud really. But they recently decided that their monthly updates (don't tell you new score or if there's anything alarming or changed at all in the email obviously, click through to the website!) are a core component, a service update, and are therefore not required to feature an 'unsubscribe' link, nor to respect users' pre-existing 'unsubscribed' preference.

If a service doesn't provide an easy and obvious way to unsubscribe from unwanted emails—by my definition, not theirs—I personally have no qualms about marking them as spam and letting them take the reputation hit. The same applies if I never subscribed in the first place; I'm not going to click an "unsubscribe" link (which could well be malicious, and at the very least leaks the fact that I received the message) for a service I didn't sign up for in the first place and have no other connection with. If not subscribing didn't work then there is no reason to think that merely unsubscribing will prove any more efficacious.

It gets more complicated when the unwanted spam is from a service which I do want to receive notifications from (just not the junk mail). Most email clients offer rule-based classification which can help, but that is obviously a bit more work than just marking messages as spam.

> some users still use disposable mails

If you are just some random service (good odds that you are, especially if you're new) people are not going to trust you with a persistent address. I would go so far as to say that the folks using them would not be interested in giving you "feedback" or receiving "updates" (which when unasked for I would certainly mark as spam).

Some websites that I have trialed in the past year are so persistent and annoying with their update newsletters and feedback requests that I consider them spam. It's even worse with small services where the founder will try to stalk and cold-call me and I have to tell them to F off on the phone ~_~

Also, most websites get hacked sooner or later, so even if they themselves are tolerable, they might leak my data to spammers.

As such, I treat everything asking for email address or phone number as an adversary. I usually setup a new username alias per service. That way, I can reconfigure the address to become a spam honeypot should the occasion arise.

For example, I'm getting boatloads of spam to my old Adobe Creative Cloud login email. I must have been included in one of their security fups.

> Yet some users still use disposable mails, so there is that.

Shouldn't be an issue if the emails are set optional. I tell them that emails are optional and are for notifications at needgap[1] just like in HN and Reddit(old). Email is optional in new reddit too but it doesn't explicitly state that but can be skipped by clicking next which presume most don't do as we've been trained to enter our email ids for signups.

Even mandatory email id during sign-ups can be tolerated, What's worse is the social network login. I'm sure those who use their social network to signup and login have dozens of applications having access to their accounts which they don't even remember ever using.

I thought at least after GDPR, businesses will give up on social media login due to the compliance headache but they seem to have doubled down.

[1] https://needgap.com

Be straightforward about your intent and ask users to share email for feedback or whatever reason and if they want let them disclose voluntarily. Whatever goods or services you provide, do so in exchange for money only, absolutley anything else that is mandatory is a cost to users. This is not just an online thing, I get ever so more infuriated when they hassle me about giving them info at a brick and mortar store.

I worked for my money, the only reason I am not just taking your stuff or forcing you to provide me service is because we have laws where all are equal and I am not your subject that you get to offer or deny me goods and services in exchange for compelling me to do things. I exchange my time and labor for wages so that I can exchange these taxed (!!) wages in exchange for goods and services. This attempt to subvert the social contract which is the foundation of government, liberty and commerce is as old as civilized society. There were many times in the past (recent ones being jim crow era, apartheid, nazi germany to name a few) where ability to engage in commerce was dictated by businesses against individuals as a means of subjugating others. Abuse of the priviledge to engage in commerce in order to implement some other agenda.

I don't care if you just want to tell people about new product updates or you have a more malicious intent, my money is legal tendor and if commerical entities have power to deny business based on my identity then I no longer have equal voice or power as everyone else, I no longer enjoy the same privilege of being able to exchange wages for goods and services because of my identity.

I mean this is absolutley enraging to me. I was initially hesitant but I listened to reason and decided to get vaccinated, guess what? The amount of questions they ask is intolerable, all sort of crap that had nothing to do with being vaccinated. Home address, employer, phone number, email address. And they didn't even care about the vaccination card enough to fill out my name on it, they gave me a blank card to put any name I want on it. at least they collected my info.

This imbalance of power between individuals and businesses is unsustainable. If someone can compel you to disclose information, they are excercising power over you. if you are unable to do the same to them, there is inequality, an imbalance of power. Neither the government nor businesses should be able to collect information about people beyond what is demonstrably and transparently neccesary to provide goods and services in exchange for taxed or paid wages. This is as much a failure of government as it is inability of society to catch up with the imbalances of power and perverse incentives created by modern technology (but like I said, even without technology information about people's identity was abused against them this way, except tech empowers malice as much as it does benevolence)

Sorry for the rant, just a pet-peeve of mine.