
No, I Don’t Want to Subscribe to Your Newsletter - jacobbudin
https://python.sh/2017/3/i-dont-want-to-subscribe-to-your-newsletter
======
kgwxd
I made a add-on for myself to shun sites that behave in ways I don't like. It
removes links to their sites from every page. It effectively removes them from
the internet. I think that's a way scarier scenario for a website owner than
just getting their ads blocked. If the list were community driven and widely
used, I think site owners would start changing their behavior. I know most
people just want the content and don't care if they block a few ads but I'm
sure, like me, there a good chunk of people that are fine with respecting the
site owners wishes and just never going to the site (by never seeing their
site mentioned ever again) since I'm not going to "pay" in any form.

I did publish the Firefox add-on (desktop only) just so I could avoid having
to use web-ext or temporarily install it every time I run FF. It's a complete
hassle to set up and configure at the moment. [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/ssure/?src=se...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/ssure/?src=search)

Edit: Source is here [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/files/browse/601156...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/files/browse/601156/) in case you want to try and not worry about
it doing something shady.

~~~
rabboRubble
Can your add-on remove all mentions of the Kardashians, Taylor Swift, Kanye,
and Bruce/Caitlin Jenner?

~~~
orblivion
If you get no response you can safely assume the answer is yes :-P

~~~
jasonkostempski
After I added the rule to try i didn't see the comment :)

~~~
rabboRubble
I am _on_ this like white on rice. TYVM!

I've looked for something that does this without luck and had been toying with
making it myself at some point.

~~~
11thEarlOfMar
I call ricist when I see it. Some of my favorite rice is brown!

------
js2
I use Safari and I almost always click/tap the reader view icon as soon as the
page loads. This:

1) Shows the text even if a modal has already tried to obscure it.

2) Ensures a legible font and contrast.

3) Undoes stupid scroll jacking. Yay, the text scrolls smoothly again.

4) Fixes the scroll bar so that it provides an accurate indication of how far
through the page I've read, since the non-text crap I don't care about isn't
part of the view now.

5) Allows me to copy text w/o worrying about anything else getting inserted to
the clipboard.

6) Doesn't disclose to the site how far I've scrolled, which is none of their
business.

And probably other good things I'm forgetting. Tapping the reader view icon as
soon as the page loads has become habitual.

I obviously run an ad blocker as well.

This is in both iOS and macOS. Reader view FTW. It's the next best thing to
disabling Javascript entirely.

Chrome and Firefox should include an as good reader view built in.

~~~
waisbrot
What do you call that giant banner that drops down on Medium (and other sites)
every time I accidentally scroll up a pixel? I hate that thing.

~~~
stock_toaster
I call it the nav teabag.

~~~
jimbert
Naming things is hard, but you've captured the essence of it really nicely.

------
Lxr
This is what happens when you mindlessly optimise for metrics like user
signups - not surprisingly, you get more signups when you block the content
with an obnoxious modal but after a few years, you wonder where all your users
went. How much value do you really get from a user who was forced to sign up
with a gun to their head?

~~~
cmahler7
this, people are too worried about the size of their list as opposed to actual
engagement. If they don't open your emails they're just costing you money with
your ESP.

If you have good content people will search hard for a way to get on your
email list if necessary, i've done it before.

~~~
spinlock
this is why it's good to require a credit card for a free trial. it will kill
the top of your funnel but the bottom will actually get fatter because those
who do sign up for the free trial actually want to demo your software.

~~~
zipwitch
Are there numbers behind that reasoning?

I ask, because that doesn't match up well with my (anecdotal) experience as an
end user. When I'm searching for software to either replace something I'm
currently using but dissatisfied with or when I'm doing something new (to me),
I want to demo candidates so I can get a feel whether I like them or not. I
don't mind paying for quality software (though much quality software is free),
but requiring credit card info for even a demo is the exact sort of hurdle
which I won't put up with. The cost (in time, and potentially wasted time in
the future) is just too high.

~~~
dkersten
Yep, my experience is similar. I've bought tons of stuff online over the years
and not once ever have I bought if I had to contact sales or had to fill out a
lengthy form [1] in order to get a demo or price. This includes during the two
startups I cofounded (ie where I was the person making the company purchase
decisions).

[1] I'll fill out short "email, name, company (if optional), industry" form
but only if I don't think some salesperson is going to give me a call.

------
old-gregg
IMO it doesn't worth the time to discuss appropriate and inappropriate uses of
JavaScript. It's way simpler to disable it entirely. I use two browsers:
Firefox with "YesScript" extension which keeps the black list of sites where
JS is disabled: see a popup? laggy scrolling? sticky headers? Bam! hit the
button and you won't see it again.

For work, where web applications like Google suite matter, I use Chrome.

Some time ago browser developers realized that letting Javascript open new
windows was a bad idea and every browser now has a setting (on by default) to
block pop-ups. IMO now it's time to introduce a few other anti-abuse settings.
My candidates are:

    
    
      - code execution on "scroll" events
      - CSS animations (web devs, your transitions are NEVER smooth, even of MBP)
      - position:fixed (auto-replace to position:static)

~~~
rodovich
> position:fixed (auto-replace to position:static)

I've gotten pretty good results from a bookmarklet that converts `position:
fixed` elements to `display: none`.

~~~
tripzilch
Here's mine:

    
    
        javascript:for (let e of document.querySelectorAll('*')) if (/fixed|sticky/.test(getComputedStyle(e).position)) e.style.position = 'static';
    

I use it so many times a day it's not even funny (it's in my bookmarks bar,
keyed to ctrl-2). I think it removes (or obscures) an element that I wanted to
see in hindsight, way less than 1% of the time. It would be nice if I could
just tell the browser to just ignore the `fixed` or `sticky` position
properties entirely.

------
pcmaffey
No, I don't want to chat with someone either.

So please stop beeping at me and popping up a chat modal.

~~~
Raphmedia
You would be surprised at the number of chats e-commerce websites receive in a
day.

One of our clients (selling clothes targeting 40+ women) had their sales
almost double when we added in a simple livechat widget.

Since I discovered that they actually put helpful people behind those chats
I've started to use them. Now I ask questions with all my online transactions.
"How is the warranty? Do clients return this product a lot? Do you have any
similar products to recommend me?", etc.

~~~
russdpale
Yeh totally agree! I love the chat windows but its annoying when they pop up
automatically.. That is just poor design.

~~~
umbrai_nation
And the beeps! I generally turn off all of the sound in my environment, and
it's very distracting to hear a beep and try to figure out where it's from.

The worst is WPEngine. I already pay for their service, but whenever I look at
an article on "How to do X", I hear _beep!_ , and there's a sales chatbox in
the corner.

I've taken to starting a chat, letting them know their site is annoying and
I'll never use it again, and then closing the page.

------
digitalengineer
Yes it's annoying but they work:

"sticking a big ole pop-up in their face can be one of the most effective ways
to jolt their attention & grab their email for a return visit." Peep Laja.
[https://conversionxl.com/popup-
defense/?hvid=2EcGFw](https://conversionxl.com/popup-defense/?hvid=2EcGFw)

~~~
petercooper
I'm in the newsletter business (and don't use these modals out of principle)
and the folks I chat to about it confirm the same - they work _really well_.

But, I counter, so does spamming or making 10000s of automated phone calls..
and we've agreed those things are damaging and unethical - I agree with Dave,
it's about time we as an industry considered full screen modals to be dirty
and unwelcome.

~~~
digitalengineer
It's about all user intent. Will you bring value? For you I'd advice
experimenting with a pop-up when the user is about to leave. "A popup designed
with exit-intent – in laymans terms it means that the popup only displays when
you are about to leave the site." Results? "an increase of sign-ups by 600%.
They went from typically 70-80 daily new subscribers to 445 – 470 new subs per
day."

~~~
bradleyankrom
How would you go about detecting when a user is about to leave your site?
Other than responding to a click on an external link? The two ways I typically
leave a site are a) typing a URL into the address bar and b) closing a tab.

~~~
Nadya
Watch for the mouse along the upper 10px of the window [0] or use of the
[Ctrl] key (for Ctrl+L or Ctrl+W). Or as other said, for a threshold of
upper/upper-left mouse movement.

You'll get a few false flags from people trying to Ctrl+C but _so_ many people
use the right-click context menu to copy/paste...you can probably ignore
Ctrl+_ entirely and just focus on that window near the top. Most users will
pass by that area when going to:

    
    
        1) Change to another tab
        2) Close the tab
        3) Type a new search/website in the Omnibar
    

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/ihiAcHe.png](http://i.imgur.com/ihiAcHe.png)

~~~
JimDabell
That's really irritating because you get false positives (not "false flag",
that's something else entirely) whenever you go to change tabs with the mouse.

If somebody is interested in subscribing, then a subscribe box at the bottom
or side of the content is fine.

~~~
Nadya
Ah, too late to fix my mistake now. Just a little slip. :) Thanks for the
correction. I know the difference of course, just had the wrong thing in my
mind while typing!

 _> whenever you go to change tabs with the mouse._

Only fire the event once, as most people will be leaving. Not flipping between
tabs.

 _> If somebody is interested in subscribing, then a subscribe box at the
bottom or side of the content is fine._

Research and A/B tests say otherwise. I was sharing a popular method - I don't
use it myself. I don't agree with it and I don't browse sites that make use of
the annoying pop-up modals.

But the trade off of driving away some users to capture many more is one many
people and companies would make.

------
pabloarteel
I think Google is fighting this by giving a lower rank to pages that do
this[1].

[1]: [https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-
easi...](https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easily-
access-content-on.html?m=1)

~~~
peeplaja
That's only for full screen takeover popups - and only for search engine
traffic

~~~
accountface
It's not only for full-screen — slide-outs that block X amount of content will
also be punished.

A lot of these popups specifically target based on various segments of Google
keyword traffic. It's a good start.

------
gnicholas
These are also bad for accessibility reasons — they generally have a light
gray "x" on a white background, which you have to hunt for if you want to
dismiss the modal. For normally-sighted individuals, this is a hassle. For
people with low vision or motor impairments (e.g. Parkinson's or other
tremors), this creates a much bigger problem.

~~~
edoceo
Some have Aria and actually dismiss with ESC. It's rare

~~~
rhizome
It used to be much more common until FE devs figured out how to stop it.

------
redleggedfrog
This battle will never be won by those who oppose the pop-ups. The reason?
They work.

If you put one on your site the metrics show a definite upturn in conversion,
be it sales or sign-ups or whatever you're pushing. Then you take it down for
awhile maybe, then you put it back up with something different and you get the
upturn again.

I personally despise them with every bone in my body, but I don't see them
ever going away.

~~~
rcymerys
They work and some people really find them useful.

Some time ago I've noticed that a few of my friends really enjoy going through
newsletter emails and finding out about items that are on sale etc. They
wouldn't necessarily look for a newsletter signup form on a website, but when
a popup appears something clicks in their brains ("OMG, I really need this!")
and they sign up.

I don't like these popups but well, most of the time I'm just not their
target.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that there were times when I actually got
converted by a popup.

When you think of that, if it offers something that's useful to you, clicking
on it feels so natural and you don't analyze it too much.

------
jacobsimon
I'm not too annoyed by modals but I'm sick and tired of websites whose content
shifts around due to inline ads loading.

It's very frustrating when you're trying to read something and the page keeps
changing its layout for 10 seconds, especially on a mobile device where you
can accidentally click on a link or ad pretty easily. Makes me wonder if they
do this on purpose...

------
jpalomaki
Instead of asking "Do you want to participate ..." ask one relevant question
that actually has some value for you. And put one field for entering free
information. If I'm in the mood, I could actually help you to develop your
business/web site by providing some highly insightful information.

Can't see any value in these questionnaires, since the population who answers
to them must be highly biased. If you spend many hours per day on web, there's
probably a dedicated section in your brains scanning for clickable [X], "No
thank you", "Close" entities on the view and giving direct commands to your
mouse hand.

~~~
ufmace
That would be kinda funny - a modal pop-over to ask a single question: What
would you improve about this website?

~~~
majewsky
"Get rid of that annoying modal pop-over."

------
stevesearer
Placing the newsletter signup form at the bottom of the articles on my site is
my preferred method. Only engaged readers get there, and those are the people
I want subscribing. Adding double opt-in also weeds out mistaken subscribers.

------
makecheck
Publishers should approach everything from the point of view of a person on
the street: if it wouldn’t be acceptable in real life, WHY is it acceptable
online!?

The equivalent of a pop-up newsletter modal is somebody on the street PULLING
you aside, standing _directly_ in front of you and preventing you from going
any further until you answer their question. All without bothering to observe
what you were doing beforehand. Your choice then is to step back the way you
came to avoid the creepy sidewalk-blocking people. Ridiculous, creepy and
unacceptable in real life but essentially exactly how web sites treat their
visitors.

~~~
jdavis703
You mean like a bouncer checking IDs at the bar? If I don't want to give my ID
to a stranger, then I just don't visit that bar, or find one with more lax
security..

~~~
chipperyman573
Those are different situations, bars have a legal obligation to prevent people
under 21 from entering or they have to ID everyone buying alcohol.

~~~
jdavis703
Yes, but some are obnoxious and card everyone, others card only people who
look like teenagers. Some have armed security that pats you down, other's have
no guards or bouncers.

I'd personally rather spend my free time at a business that doesn't harass me,
so when it's up to me I go to more chill bars.

My point being, this behaviour happens in real life too... and some people
would rather go to bars that have high-security, dot their Is and cross their
Ts. But ultimately the choice is up to both the business and consumer, it
doesn't have anything to do with being acceptable or not.

------
jo909
Yes, I want to subscribe to your newsletter!

Automatically with a browser plugin, with an address that will even accept
your mails. Unfortunately no human will read them in the end, but I'm sure
your metrics will be great. I might even accept a cookie so you know I'm
already subscribed to your great newsletter.

Now if everybody were to do that...

~~~
franciscop
Just imagine a plugin that searches the page for emails and subscribes their
email to themselves.

PS, when forced to give an email (like 5 min ago for this Wifi) just use
@mailinator.com with anything prepended.

~~~
jo909
Well filtering out their own domains or big anonmailers or fakes is not that
hard, so it's best if the address is not distinguishable from someone who is
just really bad at reading their mail.

Of course they will then begin to make automated sign ups harder, maybe with
captchas or confirmation links etc. which will also discourage real users and
maybe kill this concept in the long run.

------
PortableCode
I usually subscribe postmaster@(domain) to the newsletter as RFC822 requires
the account to be active ;)

~~~
codazoda
I doubt it's actually active on most domains even though the RFC asks for it
to be so. I would even guess that admin@(domain) might be more effective. Just
a guess on my part though.

------
tehno
My default action with these popovers is to Cmd+Opt+C to trigger DevTools
Select Element feature, click on the modal background div and just delete it
from DOM. Most of the times quicker than hunting for the small X button
somewhere.

------
neogodless
I'm not sure the headline succinctly conveys the prime message of the article,
which is that modals have replaced pop-ups as a nuisance.

In general, I agree. My reaction to most modals is to simply close the tab.
Often it's halfway through an article. I can't be bothered to finish it if I'm
being interrupted rudely.

------
0x006A
I started just closing the tab if a site thinks I want to signup before
reading the content. If sites are do desperate for the quick fix, I do not
expect them to have good content below that modal dialog.

~~~
brainfire
Two step process here:

1) Subscribe "abuse@(sitedomain)" to the newsletter. I don't know if anyone
still uses that convention but it reduces my frustration.

2) Add the site to my ad blocker blacklist so I don't waste my time by
visiting again.

------
joshuak
Why can't we just agree to do away with popup windows/overlays altogether?
Then this kind of thing would be harder, and hacking a workaround would be
more obviously bad practice.

Software interfaces are becoming common even in car consoles and heavy
equipment. Bad UI is moving from annoying to life threatening.

'9' != 'yes'

Is a life threatening inequality if the '9' on a phone keypad, and the 'yes'
is the confirmation of a popup. Are you calling 911 or agreeing to upgrade the
os? Dramatically different intents yet indistinguishable if they should occur
at the same time.

Popops are perhaps one of the best known examples of user hostile GUI
patterns. Popups induce 'mode errors' and violate user security and safety by
redirecting input at random and potentially critical moments of user
interactions. We've known for a very long time, perhaps since the 90s that the
correct way to notify a user must not assume user awareness and must not steal
focus. Notifications should be added to a list that can be reviewed buy the
user at any time. Never steel focus, never obscure users activity, never
assume you have the users full attention or or mental capacity to make
choices. The time for such considerations _must_ be chosen by the user.

------
koonsolo
Good thing we replaced those annoying Flash banners with javascript </irony>

Old guys like me saw this coming from miles away, it's just history repeating
itself.

To give you all a heads-up: in the future browsers will ask you "This site
wants to open a new javascript dialog. Show/block"

~~~
drdaeman
Of course, not that simple.

In the future, every other website will ship their own rendering engine (from
some big CDN, of course) that prohibits you from messing with their precious
spam. Heck, I honestly do expect some startups doing just this kind of
"innovation" as soon as WebAssembly gets slightly more polished and cross-
browser, so probably just another year or two from now.

(That shit will be fought with AI/ML nextgen ad-blockers, that would try to
"see" what that positioned <div> is - a spammy modal or some legit navigation
sidebar... and I don't dare to think any further, as we approach the
singularity.)

~~~
koonsolo
After that, only text will be allowed. The coolest feature of HTML7 will be
the <blink> text. ;)

------
tlow
From the perspective of crowdfunding

1\. The crowdfunding sites themselves maintain HUGE newsletter lists and use
very advanced analytics to determine what to place in those newsletters.

2\. For campaigners, the size and activity of your email list is a huge factor
in determining your campaign success. Just like this web tool
[https://www.thunderclap.it/about](https://www.thunderclap.it/about) sending a
direct email blast to a good list can mean the difference of a successful hard
launch and campaign, or a lackluster or failed campaign. The email lists of
the sites themselves which feature several campaigns, are hugely influential
on campaign success, and in my experience has at least once lead to the
production of 4x our total raise goal in a single platform newsletter feature
of our campaign.

Sometimes people do want to be notified. Newsletters are something of a
different issue, but the case above seems like a newsletter to me. Especially
because we used our first campaign backers + second campaign + interest
landing pages and social media gathering email campaigns to continually send
emails about new campaigns and products.

Essentially therefore I'm arguing, the ability to gather a quality, targeted
email list and generate a recurring newsletter without a 10%+ attrition rate
[1] is both difficult and valuable.

[1] CANSPAM compliance requires unsubscribe link, my personal interpretation
is 1-click unsubscribe should be the rule, no loading email setting pages
behind login walls. Good design is honest. Crowdfunding requiring physical
good production in quantity is very difficult for the uninitiated. And then it
remains difficult, time consumer over time, and requires constant attention.
This is essentially scaling issues but in the physical world. So many of the
failed to deliver crowdfunded projects are not so much dishonest as naive, but
also consider Jobs' thoughts on the subject

> great artists ship

though Dieter Rams (most famous living Industrial Designer) says

> designers are not fine artists who we are often confused for

~~~
TelmoMenezes
> Just like this web tool
> [https://www.thunderclap.it/about](https://www.thunderclap.it/about)

This is not a "web tool", this is a spam tool.

> Sometimes people do want to be notified.

No they don't.

> Essentially therefore I'm arguing, the ability to gather a quality, targeted
> email list and generate a recurring newsletter without a 10%+ attrition rate
> [1] is both difficult and valuable.

The web is a beautiful dream. It's being destroyed by people that talk about
"attrition rates" and "targeted whatever".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jemqAtxKyAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jemqAtxKyAo)

~~~
tlow
I'm sorry but calling said tool "spam" is hyperbole to the point of factual
incorrectness. Furthermore, this said tool is recommended by Indiegogo's Field
Guide, a direct publication of Indiegogo.com, the world's second largest
Crowdfunding Platform. I suggest you re-evaluate your fallacious assertion.

Aside: You seem very argumentatively aggressive in your comments. Is that
serving you or those you're communicating with?

~~~
TelmoMenezes
> I'm sorry but calling said tool "spam" is hyperbole to the point of factual
> incorrectness.

The first sentence from Wikipedia on "spamming" is:

"Electronic spamming is the use of electronic messaging systems to send an
unsolicited message (spam), especially advertising, as well as sending
messages repeatedly on the same site."

Do you disagree with this definition?

> Furthermore, this said tool is recommended by Indiegogo's Field Guide, a
> direct publication of Indiegogo.com, the world's second largest Crowdfunding
> Platform.

I have nothing against Indiegogo, but it's not very hard to figure out that
they have a vested interest in their users spreading their crowdfunding
campaigns as far and wide as possible -- they make money if they get funded
and they get free advertisement as a side-effect. Why should I care what they
think about this issue?

> Aside: You seem very argumentatively aggressive in your comments. Is that
> serving you or those you're communicating with?

Yes.

------
Animats
In Firefox, right click on popups and bring up "Inspect Element". Then find
the top level element of the popup in the inspector, and Delete Node. The
modal disappears. This even bypasses some paywalls. Some sites won't then
scroll, though.

An add-on to dismiss modals should be possible. Most people do ad-removal add-
ons by looking for explicit HTML text, but there are more general approaches.
Look for a big box that has a high Z index. That's the modal. Then proceed up
the tree until you rejoin with the main document text. Delete the subtree with
the modal. Then force scrolling behavior to return to the default.

~~~
techsupporter
Do you know of a way, say in the JavaScript console (I'm guessing?), to reset
scroll behaviors? I'm not clever enough with JS or CSS to have figured it out.
Deleting the modal using the inspector is what I do but I can't get around the
scrolling...

~~~
timdavila
This will solve the problem for you on most sites:

document.getElementsByTagName('html')[0].style.overflow = "scroll";

The css property you're looking for is "overflow," usually on the body or html
tag.

~~~
techsupporter
Thank you, I didn't know the property name and it wasn't obvious (to me). :)

------
radley
> This is because there is no single implementation of modal windows. Many are
> custom-built.

Actually, 90% are from the same few plugins. Unfortunately, those plugs are
designed with _dark patterns_ to prevent Element Hiding Helper or Element
picker from removing anything from that domain.

Some use use randomized IDs each page creation. The worst offenders remove the
page scrollbar during the modal so even if you can hide the modal, you can no
longer any pages on that site.

------
aendruk
Just hit the back button when this happens.

A website covering its content with trash is a good indicator that the content
wasn't worth spending your time on in the first place.

~~~
jmcdiesel
They wont do that. They feel entitled to the content. They feel entitled to
someone else's work for free but only in the format they demand.

------
jasonkostempski
NoScript unless they earn the privilege of executing code. I wish whatever
spec would have covered the concern had stated script execution MUST prompt
the user.

~~~
romuloab42
Disabling Javascript has singlehandedly fixed several annoyances I had, even
with ad blocking. No more tabs draining my battery (ok, css animations are
still a problem), no more things jumping around, no more page popups, no more
Intercom chat windows from people eager to talk to me, no more 3rd party crap
Javascript tracking me (ublock prevented them already, but it's nice to know
there's no way they can bypass adblock). Things load and render fast.

Some pages still require Javascript, and SSO is usually a pain, but for those
cases I have a Chrome profile with Javascript enabled and a simple Hammerspoon
script that launches that profile in incognito mode for the url I have on my
clipboard.

Oh, and Gmail basic html mode is so snappy!

------
rebuilder
I'm irrationally annoyed by these popovers to the extent that I'm tempted to
just start locally blocking every site that has them. Just need a handy button
to add the domain of whatever page I'm viewing to hosts.deny and preferably
fire off an email to the site's admin telling them I prefer never visiting
their site again to having to be subjected to their method of promotion.

------
soheil
It's interesting how most of the solutions here surround just blacklisting
those websites, removing them entirely like ad blocks do with ads. I'd like to
point out in a lot of cases we visit those websites not because there are 20
other sites with the same content, but because we care about _their_ content!
That's why we're there. Or if there are other sites with similar content we
haven't found them yet and/or that would require additional expenditure of
time/energy to do so. So I'm not so sure why this is a highly shared solution
here.

I also think we have to differentiate between behavior that is user action
based vs. default case. Pop ups were stopped by browsers because they were
triggered on page load for example, it was an action that should have produced
a deterministic outcome. If part of a page that is not tied to a user action
is blocked that is a passively executed scenario and can be used arbitrarily
to censor anything by anyone and that's not a place we should move to.

------
angvp
I do agree with the article, but sites continue to ask me for stuff, what I
do, is fake data, nothing is painful than that.

------
morley
The full-screen modal-with-windowshade newsletter prompts are super annoying.
But I realize bloggers will always want to "expand their reach," to use the
distasteful marketing term. I'd much prefer the prompted blinded in from the
side quickly, or ideally, appeared in the site's sidebar. I'm guessing they're
used everywhere because you could drop in a code snippet to do everything for
you, and a vast majority of code snippets are the "in your face windowshade"
variety.

I don't know what to do about this situation other than to write my own paste-
in package for newsletter signups, which I don't really have time for. I guess
the best thing I can do is announce: if your newsletter prompt doesn't cover
the main content of the page, I'm much more likely to subscribe (~20%) than if
it's a modal + windowshade (0%).

~~~
gkya
I'd sort of be okay with them if they appeared immediately and were easy to
get rid of. But with them it takes me a minute to reach the content (page load
time included, which is about 30 seconds on average for me nowadays with
_modern_ websites on a 16mbits ADSL connection).

------
srigi
How about extension with some kind of machine learning? You know, all 4
borders and all 4 corners going dark w/o user interaction. At the same time
some kind of form input appear at highest z-index.

Extension would delete that DOM subtree rightaway. + some kind of cloud
harvest from users reporting false-positives.

~~~
taco_emoji
Sure, but how do you do that in a way that can't be circumvented? Alice
creates a page with a newsletter popup, then Bob installs a plugin with a
MutationObserver [0], so Alice just adds some code to disable any such
MutationObservers.

Plus how do you determine when it's an _unwanted_ modal? You don't want to
block the login popup, for example. Maybe you can block all modals except for
the ones generated from a "click" event, but what if the site sets a "click"
listener on the <body> tag?

[0] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/MutationObs...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/MutationObserver)

------
davidw
Lots of predictable complaining. OTOH, email marketing works pretty well with
'average folks', or it did in the past. So: maybe avoid it on your geek
oriented site, but on something meant for regular people, it might work well.

------
rdiddly
To put a finer point on it, no, I'm not too dumb to find a regular ordinary
signup link somewhere when I'm interested, and no, I didn't accidentally
forget to click yours. Face it, website, I'm just not that into you!

------
scott00
Anybody know an FTC commisioner's email address? I've always thought it would
be funny to put that into every subscription nag I see. (The FTC is in charge
of enforcing US spam laws.)

------
davidgerard
This is why Google needs to start penalising lightboxes.

------
fdim
How about cookie policy popups/notifications/extra-top -bar? It's getting
increasingly annoying to browse the Web. Basically you have to close some
signup modal, cookie warning, chat head before you can start reading the
content only to get another blocking modal right after scrolling - which will
'kindly' ask you to disable ad blocker... It's getting better and better!

~~~
GauntletWizard
At least with the Brexit, we'll hopefully stop seeing them on UK sites.

------
tra3
Since we're talking about ads and such, has anyone tried AdNauseam [0]? It's
an extension based on uBlock that clicks ALL ad links in the background. I
find the idea fascinating because flooding my ad profile with random noise
sounds appealing.

[0]: [https://adnauseam.io/](https://adnauseam.io/)

------
hawski
I have to try with having special gmail e-mail address and set every mail that
gets there as spam.

If more people would do this they could penalize the host.

------
bernardlunn
I run a newsletter biz and avoid all these gimmicks. Real attention is what
matters not phony metrics - even if attention is hard to measure.

------
mmjaa
I would be quite content if the Web became something more akin to a
"Reception", i.e. that there was the opportunity to meet/chat with a Real
Human, instead of automated software.

Is it not true that automatic things are better when experienced at the hands
of a human, than a machine? I think this factor is at play here ..

------
bsmith
I think the OP here hit the nail on the head: if you don't like it, leave. He
has no right to demand a web property owner appease his every whim. The owner
has every right to have modals on their site. Just like Walmart has every
(legal) right to mistreat their employees. So I don't shop there.

------
microcolonel
Author linked to the _i hate popup modals_ tumblr, where I was confronted with
a (subtler than most, granted) popup.
[http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=113889](http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=113889)

------
awwstn
> The only solution is to unite in changing our behavior. We need to give
> website operators an ultimatum: Remove the modals, or we leave.

Firstly: most of these modals only show up on exit intent and only once per
~90 days (if you allow cookies), so this ultimatum is fairly hollow.

Secondly: do you value your pageview so highly that you think web publishers
must respond to your demands? Are you paying these sites for their
content/whatever else you're looking at? If not, then maybe clicking out of a
modal once per 90 days is a fair price to pay for whatever it is that you're
looking at.

Thirdly: as you mention, the reason these modals are all over the place is
that they work. Fortunately, all highly-effective marketing tactics get
repeated perpetually until consumers become immune to them...that will surely
happen here, you might just need to wait a bit longer.

 _should note that, like @petecooper below /above, I'm in the newsletter
business and don't use these modals. But I also see no reason why people who
want to use them shouldn't use them_

------
dongslol
Why don't adblockers work on these? Don't they just block elements based on
CSS selectors? If so, why can't we collect a database of CSS selectors for the
top 1000 sites, CSS classes used by popular modal popup libraries, etc.?

------
designium
You can suspend the modal pop ups, at least the majority of them, by detecting
if they use Bootstrap or Foundation and add CSS code to take over the modal
classes from those libraries. Most sites use one of those two framworks
anyway.

------
watter
I give the forms junk data now to make it expensive for them to maintain. I
only ever hit the form once, but I have heard of people writing bots to hammer
these forms in the realm of hundreds or thousands of submissions.

------
dorianm
> The only solution is to unite in changing our behavior. We need to give
> website operators an ultimatum: Remove the modals, or we leave

Another solution is to have ad blockers also block modals, like there is to be
for popups

~~~
mirimir
The article explains why that's nontrivial.

~~~
dorianm
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/modal-
remover/affk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/modal-
remover/affkdfhjkjmeedminjfcdehjjiifpghf?hl=en-US)

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stoppity-
poppity/a...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stoppity-
poppity/abckjldgppcaijlhpdjipckhehlpenbf?hl=en)

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/behindtheoverlay/l...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/behindtheoverlay/ljipkdpcjbmhkdjjmbbaggebcednbbme?hl=en)

I personally only install highly trusted Chrome Extension, I will review those
at some point.

------
codedokode
Old Opera browser used to have a button to disable CSS that would return page
to a readable state. Also it was helpful on websites with white-on-black color
scheme.

------
rectangletangle
CSS `display: none` works a surprising amount of the time with those pesky
overlays, unless they're using their backend to govern access.

------
netrap
Why I don't want to become a member or join your newsletter? Because some
asshole is going to hack it and steal my information!

------
maxwellito
This problem also exists on YouTube channels. It's when the YouTuber is asking
to subscribe at the end of his/her videos.

~~~
jmcdiesel
Do you really feel so entitled that you're upset at a person asking for
support at the end of a video?

------
potomak
A post against modal windows usability that contains a link to a site that use
one, that's incoherent.

------
Lio
...and no, I don't want to log into your walled garden Facebook, LinkedIn,
etc.

------
mindslight
I run a whois on the domain and enter the technical contact in the subscribe
box.

------
eXpl0it3r
I wish popup-/ad-blockers would start picking up these modal popups as well.

------
WillyOnWheels
If a modal box asks me to subscribe to a newsletter, I use legal@{website}

------
sklivvz1971
Another good use case for spam blockers. They work wonderfully for this.

------
matell
first I hated those popups, but then I turned it into a funny game -- in every
popup which asks for email I fill in email address like "f*ck-off@this-
popup.com" :)

------
goatherders
If you don't want to see my pop up asking you to subscribe to my newsletter
after you've scrolled through half the article I wrote (that you have shown to
be interested) then you are free to leave and not come back. Deal.

~~~
GrinningFool
And I often do, thanks for the invitation.

On the other hand, if there's a non-popup at the end of post that asks for my
email address, and if I liked the content and think more would be useful ...
I'll provide it.

------
edw519
_There’s no keyboard shortcut you can use to get rid of them._

Sure there is:

    
    
      1. Alt-F4
      2. Ctrl-Alt-Del

~~~
Karunamon
I've found that many of them respond to ESC, probably for accessibility
reasons.

It's almost become a reflex when the page suddenly goes dim to thwack the key
before whatever garbage they decided to shove in my face finishes loading.

~~~
Rooster61
That's nice when you are on a web browser designed for desktop use, but that
recourse is never present on mobile, which is where I encounter a large
majority of modals.

It's doubly annoying when you have to press that tiny little X with sausage
fingers like mine. Not to mention when they are coded to only display an image
of an X rather than an actual close link and you get redirected anyways.

I hate these thing with a burning passion.

~~~
jmcdiesel
back button works :)

