Admittedly I'm not normal, but it might be considering the market at which the site is aimed, and the type of people you're trying to get signed up. I have significant disposable income, and actively look for ways of trading that money for either time or knowledge. Having that modal pretty much guarantees I won't be back.

So ask, it might increase number of emails in your list, but will it increase your income?

I only came to the comments to make sure someone pointed out how awful that dialog is.

So true. As soon as I saw it I backed out, and it leaves a really bad impression. Let me reveal something important: I just want to read the post. That's it. Simple, right? You'd think bloggers would be able to figure this out.

I agree that there could be better ways to serve the popup (time-delay, wait until 2nd article viewed, etc) but if your argument is simply "turn it off because I dont like it, and it will never work" -- go look it up. One such example:

http://danzarrella.com/my-data-shows-email-popups-work-and-d...