"Unsubscribe" is a smokescreen for the above purpose. Most people believe that "Unsubscribe" makes these companies go away, but in reality it just hides the fact that they still own some of your data. And if it is companies like Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, they tend to follow you around the web, even if you haven't logged on to their service at the time (this has been discussed plenty).

I am in EU, so GDPR applies. I prefer to (instead) take a few mins and either respond and/or respond and include their "privacy@example.com" asking them as per GDPR to delete me from their records, which they (most) claim to have done so.

In some extreme cases, I filter to auto-delete their crap. I understand the grandfather of this post claiming that we should make the effort to do things clean and neat (which I honestly do and urge friends and family to also do), but there is an imbalance here. Some companies act in a very unethical way. They take the (beneficial to them) gamble that most people will prefer to flag as spam, than go through the multiple hoops of "Unsubscribing". The fact that he/she acts ethically, caring for the marketing effectiveness of his/her efforts makes him the minority (imho).

I don't hate advertisements or advertisers. They are people too. I just dislike the practices of the majority of marketers.