This is a nice modal, but I'd much rather never have a modal ever. The only time a modal should appear is if a critical error occurred that the user must know about immediately. For most cases where modals tend to get used, like on iOS "please rate us", or "we want your contact information now", I don't think it is appropriate at all.
It's a forcible interruption of whatever the user is doing, and the user has to interact with it before continuing. As such, it should be used only when there is something that needs attention immediately.
If it's used for collecting user info after they hit a signup button, that's marginally acceptable, but they would still be unable to, for example, scroll back up the page to double-check some info until they finished with it. So I see popups like that as a failure of design; "I didn't know where to put this, so, here. Modal."
What modals are actually used for in the majority of cases I've seen is making modal popups begging first time visitors to register for websites and similar. This task is neither urgent nor necessary (nor, in most cases, desirable) for the users. Forcing them to interact with it before the rest of the page is incredibly irritating, but that will never stop because it's more lucrative.
> As such, it should be used only when there is something that needs attention immediately.
There are a lot of times that this is the case, it's strange you'd prefer no modal at all. I make backend web apps and modals are hugely valuable. Creating/editing new objects, confirming actions, applying filters, etc etc. I'd agree they have no place in informational web sites (like your favorite news site), but the web is used for a lot more than informational websites.
But the reasons you're giving for saying "but I'd much rather never have a modal ever" are down to bad design decisions. In that sense any UI pattern could cause you the same reaction if used badly.
I don't think you can write of modals simply because you don't like how they are used in some cases.
For example, how do you feel about Pinterest using modals to expand on content?
