I want to be left alone (2024)

From where I'm from, there's a saying (badly paraphrased): "only the shopkeeper who talks well can get his stuff sold". Most of which the OP talks about is marketing, and marketing is a given, else the business will have a hard time existing.

If businesses need to make an effort towards marketing, it follows that counterparties will need to make an effort to block out that marketing if they do not want it. And the more aggressive marketing I get, the more aggressive I become about blocking it:

- giving more or all my business to companies who do leave me alone

- throwaway / hide-my emails

- unsubscribing, or even better, marking as spam

- not downloading unnecessary apps, and turning notifications off for most of them

- complaints to telecom operator for spam calls and messages (government has actually started taking strict action against these recently)

- complaints for bad behavior, in very public platforms

- actively making sure to delete accounts when no longer needed

Companies spend real money to reach me. So I return the favor and spend some time to ensure that I throw them off my lawn.