There is not a single website that I register to and go “oh yes, I would love to see your promotional material!”. So whenever I get something promotional in my inbox, I mark it spam. I mark it spam with a smile on my face, knowing that:
- My email provider (Google) receives a copy of the email, and they use it to enhance their spam filters on it
- Spam compliance rate is a thing - if 0.1 to 0.3% of recipients report a business’ email as spam, that affects the deliverability rate to other users as well
“You can just click unsubscribe”
You can just make your spam opt-in!
“It’s hard to grow a business”
I DON’T CARE! I care more about the other people you’re annoying, hence why I’m reporting your garbage. I’ve started 3 failed businesses and several open source projects. I know how hard it is to get users, and I know spamming works. But guess what, that’s the tradeoff you make!
“Think about the bigger picture; by making it harder to advertise, you’re only supporting the bigger players”
Look, I still don’t care. To avoid getting philosophical, I’ll just say this: The battle against mega-corps isn’t going to be helped significantly by people having inboxes full of spam.
From a federation perspective, Email is already screwed. The trust is already centralized. These days, many sites require a user’s registration email provider to be one that verifies phone numbers, and self-hosting an email service too frequently ends up with your important emails (like job applications) going to spam. (Ask me how I know!).
Godspeed to those who are still self-hosting, or using a service like Tuta or Proton, but I’m out. Hate the game, not the player. I’ll be over here on Gmail until it enshittifies, aiming to get these trash services at their 0.3%.
And by the way, do you work in marketing for a terrorist organization like Shell or Coca-Cola? Make sure to trash their compliance rate before you leave!