Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey, I'm just going to post the same response I used in the IndieHackers comment section for someone with a similar concern. Here's what I said: "Our subscribers are too important to us to ever sell their information to someone else. We never have and never will sell users information like that. Our only source of income is subscriptions and occasional advertisements in the free emails. Ruining our reputation to make…
And these two comments (the parent and grandparent) capture the tension between money and principles. I don't know anything about the insides of your business but we dealt with this crap all the time at Blekko. Realistically, how many of your customers are going to make a custom email for your giveaway promotions? Its going to be small, and they are 100% going to get spammed and abused by that part of the Internet in…
A pattern I've seen in business is similar: when there's a bad actor who is able to pay exorbitant amounts for user acquisition, but then offers a bad product/experience, it's a losing startup strategy to go compete by offering a better product/experience. Just avoid that particular market / niche / channel entirely.
The bad guys who are paying a super-high CAC and still successfully monetizing it are going to outspend you, and the customers who keep taking the bait from the bad guys have already signaled that they can't be reached.
So anytime you (as a startup) see the equivalent of "quick weight loss pills" being hawked successfully through some channel, and your product is "eat right and exercise," go around that trap and not through it. Otherwise the bad guys will drive you broke as you throw pearls before swine.
The major qualifier here might be that big incumbents, NGOs, or governments should not necessarily ignore these bad guys. Not what I'm saying. Just that if you are a good guy with limited money, attacking a profitable channel dominated by bad guys is a losing strategy.