[joegahona]

I'm not sure if your question is rhetorical, but I'd like to know this too. My observation is that what started as a decent idea was quickly hijacked by marketing departments and got corrupted so quickly that they've become an annoyance to me -- not unlike pop-ups, browser push notifications, and so forth. It's the "tinted car windows" of the web, immediately putting your site into a bad neighborhood.

Anecdotally, I've had far more success DM'ing companies on Twitter -- I don't think I've ever gotten a bot-like, automated response when taking that route, and I've had really specific questions answered quickly and thoroughly.