TLDR We don't give a shit about privacy and are actively working on combating this pro-privacy measure.
> A smaller publisher, a local newspaper, a solo freelancer, a small blog; all these will lose data on a significant part of their audience. A likely valuable part of their audience. And it may stifle or slow their growth or opportunities.
I seriously doubt that "solo freelancers" and "small blogs" are going to be affected by this. They have real businesses to run, email is just a marketing channel for them and not their source of income.
> Where previously you could unsubscribe readers who hadn't opened your newsletter to save money, now you don't know if they're loyal or not. You'll have to find other ways to entice them to let you know they are reading. A larger publisher can afford to keep 20,000 recipients on a list that never open an email. A smaller outfit cannot.
This is so delusional it hurts my brain. I have never in my life been unsubscribed by any newsletter, but I've been auto subscribed to hundreds of them by asshole marketers. If thousands of people don't want to read your shitty newsletter - that's a YOU PROBLEM easily fixed by allowing subscribers to unsub in a fast and reliable manner.
And I'm sorry, but you are entirely wrong on your second point. Small publishers and newsletters are a growing business in media, many of them free (in order to build an audience from nothing). Blocking their opens from being recorded on what could be over 50% of recipients is going to cause them problems. They won't be able to measure their growth as effectively, they won't be able to get sponsorships as easily, and they won't be able to as easily judge as to when to go paid and ad-free.
Marketing newsletters are very different from the editorial newsletters that I'm generally talking about here. It's a shame they have to use the same technology, but the unsubscribe pruning is reader friendly, and doesn't prevent a smooth and reliable manual unsubscribe process.