[idopmstuff]

The reality is that in a lot of cases, losing you is acceptable collateral damage. Some percentage of people will close the site if they see a popup (I do some of the time, depending on how much I care about seeing the site's content and how easy it is to close the popup).

> everyone agreed we should block those then

They didn't, though. It's very plausible that everyone in your social circle agreed on that, but there were a lot of people filling those popups out then, and there are a lot of people doing it now.

That is not to say that you're not right - they are annoying, and I'd generally rather be rid of them. The reality is, though, people who immediately close websites upon seeing popups are a small minority, and for many websites the value lost by those people closing the website it meaningfully less than the value gained by some percent of people giving their email.