The success rate is low, but the problem is that it's an arms race, where every competitor is spamming, so each new entrant (or non-spammer) must try to spam even harder to compete. If one elects not to spam, they are at a competitive disadvantage. If there is an anti-spam law or regulation, this just benefits competitors from other jurisdictions, where it is difficult to enforce the rule.
Every anti-spam regulation or law has this provision. The problem is that laws and regulations are rarely enforced, especially against people outside the jurisdiction which created the rule. Look at how infrequently GDPR is enforced outside the EU; it isn't even enforced rigorously against entities clearly violating it inside the EU!
Luckily this kind of thing is very much illegal here in the EU. If they send me marketing shit without my explicit active consent, they are in violation of the law, and I can at least report them. As I do. It is still not perfect, but the amount of spam I get from previous business relations has declined a lot in the past years. Other spam is still rampant, and I can only block any such sender until they find a new way to push their shit.
Give them a masked email (if you get a custom domain, you can make it so any random string of characters is a new masked email). Block all calls and texts except from contacts
> Bank of America, which sends all kinds of promotional stuff
Use a different bank (for more reasons than avoiding spam)
I'd kinda understand it if they had sent me a polite text or email shortly after our initial engagement saying "hey, if you had a good experience please review us/recommend us" but coming in literal years late with a blast of multiple messages screams "we hired some sort of marketing firm and fed them our customer database".
And it stands to reason NYT do this so aggressively since they also have by far the most successful subscription business in the entire world of journalism.
One that particularly bugs me is Bank of America, which sends all kinds of promotional stuff with a note at the end saying "You're receiving this servicing email as part of your existing relationship with us." Can't block it without blocking actual important banking emails. Experian was doing the same - promoting services under the guise of offering account updates. It does feel desperate, but one has to imagine that this firehose technique works.