Lacking substance is one symptom, harassing users in various ways is another symptom. The common cause is prioritizing traffic/audience/influence over content. It's not like it's impossible to provide substance without popups. It's fine to have a newsletter, but the respectful thing is to let me choose and don't push it at me. This is obvious.. I'm not sure why you're so eager to defend the sad new normal as if this was unavoidable