[aj_ycombinator]

While each of your objections are a matter of personal preferences and there can be discussion around them, you are certainly not entitled to label asking for sign-ups as 'dishonesty'. Using unnecessarily strong words without knowing the entire context (did you read the entire post or have seen the nature of our content or where we are trying to "milk" you?) is uncalled for. We don't track user with cookies, don't block our content (the overlay is dismissible), aren't showing any advertisements. Dishonesty is when I claim that I will not share your personal information with third party and still do so. How a sales process should be driven is a function of both being ethical as well as being cognizant of human behavior / market paradigms / reality. Both have to co-exist. And just to tell you what the actual behavior of our target segment is, they don't see everything in such stark light of suspicion (and neither do we misuse that) and thinking themselves to be the sheep. You can definitely judge us, but you could be doing that with lesser bias and pre-suppositions.