In reply to Terence.

...and I am trying to ready it when one of those stupid things pops off in my face, I don’t dutifully fill it in and carry on reading. No, I instantly leave the site and I never return.

You mean instead just closing the popup and continue reading the article you are interested in you close the entire site and than start over searching for similar content which? That seems to be very ineffectual or you have very strong principals;)

As long as a popup can be permanently closed and content is great i don't have a problem with popups. I even subscribe to them from time to time although i am aware that they are trying to upsell something sooner or later to me.

... is that it disrespects the customer. And when you’re disrespected you are unlikely to come back for more.

I only feel disrespected when there is no way to unsubscribe from a mail that is landing on my computer.
If i am using a (free) product i am not shocked or scared much when the author is trying to get in contact with me as long as my wish of not getting these mails is respected afterwards.

I can not remember when i received my last private mail from a friend. These days the medium mail is mainly used by companies and my mail inbox is 99% full of marketing and transactional mails by companies i am connected to.

So i do not care about one marketing mail more or less but i do care about the power of unsubscribing.

jm2c