Used to be in the same camp, before starting my own company. While the border is thin, it is clear, and there is a difference between marketing and spam.
If that was the case, all newsletter senders in the world are spammers too. And all spammers thinking they are marketers is not logically equivalent to all marketing is spamming
I have! Expensify. Not a customer, and never have been. Signed up because I was considering using the service. The emails are exceedingly infrequent and delightful to read.
That’s you (and the large part of HN who doesn’t know anything about normal users). When GDPR came into effect, we even had people write us that they were annoyed having to reconfirm, as obviously they still wanted our newsletter.
Some people want to receive marketing emails. The exact same emails are spam to the rest of us. If you default opt-in users and don't make blanket unsubscription from all marketing emails easy (and make the clear distinction [both internally and externally] between emails regarding the existing functionality of products/services that we've already paid for and emails to ask for more revenue from us, which includes copy supported by advertisers), then you're a spammer, simple as that.
Spammers aren't necessarily evil, but definitely annoying, and annoying customers is a good way to lose them. It's easy to drink the coolaid and eat the dogfood when you're paid to like it or have a passion for creating it but potential customers have roughly the opposite incentive and it pays to remember that.
I receive a lot of unread, unwanted email from companies I pay money to every month. It's ridiculous.
There's some things right on the edge, like Netflix as an example. They're never trying to sell me anything; they've got my $N/month. The emails (that I don't read until now to sample them) are suggestions of shows I might like. User retention mail and promoting the shows they own the rights to are spam, but not all of it is.
My credit union sends infrequent warnings about recent phishing and scam techniques. I never opted in to those emails but they're not useless for everyone and possibly do net good.
I think a good heuristic is to look at the value provided in emails; if the recipient stands to benefit significantly more than the sender (on average) then it's not spam. Sure, my credit union has to deal with less hassle reversing charges or resetting passwords but it's quite a lot more hassle to be a victim of phishing or other scams.
I have a common name first year/generation gmail account. The volume of mail I receive that I didn't solicit is mind-boggling. Not just spammers, but it's obvious that people have saved the wrong address in their browser suggestions, and that people give it out when asked for an email addresses at retail. Disney employees, California private school parents, iPhone receipts and apple IDs. Taxes, warrants, bail bonds, social security information. People are f'ing stupid when it comes to email.
Everything should require a confirmation before you assume it's valid. Not because it doesn't exist but because it might not be who you think it is.
