[maxwelldone]

As an engineer and from a common sense perspective, these modals bother me a lot. However, in the interest of curiosity, I'd like to hear from PMs and the likes as to how successful these annoyances are in reality.

Broadly, I see two types of visitors to these kinda sites:

1. Someone new, who's most likely just following a link (like us) - they haven't even had a chance to read the article yet & knows nothing about the site, it's reputation, quality etc. All a pop up does is annoy a new visitor. I highly doubt people will take the time or even trust to give away their email with no obvious benefit.

2. A repeat user, someone who's familiar with the site. What's wrong with placing a simple signup form at the end of the article. It's unobtrusive & if people really like your stuff, they will sign up.

Or is it the case that people like us are not the target audience - they couldn't give two shit*s whether we stay on the page or not. Fortunately I haven't had to deal with SEO and shoving stuff on users to sell my stuff, so perhaps I'm naive.

[drcongo]

Many many years ago, when this trend first appeared, I made the Tumblr Tab Closed; Didn't Read [0] - it got retweeted by some web luminaries like Eric Meyer and Tim Berners Lee and, while the vast majority of the replies I got were in huge agreement, there were a bunch of "growth hackers" absolutely furious that I'd made it and now everyone hates them. So I wrote this [1].

The key takeaway is that "growth hackers" only care about conversions. They don't care if it pissed people off, or if someone only signed up because they couldn't see the close button etc. Just some numbers that help them justify their pay packet.

[0] https://tabcloseddidntread.com

[1] https://andybeaumont.com/post/the-value-of-content/

Disclaimer: Back in 2013 when I wrote [1] Medium wasn't the growth hacker clown car that it is today. And actually, nor was Tumblr.

[reaperducer]

I find it ironic that your [0] link is guilty of the very sin it moans about.

[drcongo]

Only ironic if you rush to post the snide comment without reading the disclaimer in the very post you're trying to whinge about.