My assumption is that signing up results in more spam even though the company has my email address either way because the act of signing up puts me in a demographic that tends to respond better to unsolicited emails -- so the company makes more from selling my data when I've made an account.

But it's only an assumption.

> Adversarial thinking works for today's fucked up world but leaves those honest not even able to try in such a paradigm

Indeed, and this is a real problem I've encountered in my own business ventures. It doesn't take that many people to pee in the pool before others start getting hesitant about swimming.

But we have to find a way to operate in the world as it exists, not as we wish it exists.