Yes, it can hurt to “just ask”

You’ve heard the phrase “it can’t hurt to ask”, and while that’s true in many situations, putting it out as a blanket statement can lead to some bad things.

A great example is spam, whether that’s via email, phone calls, or things like LinkedIn connections. In every case, they figure “it can’t hurt to ask”, but collectively, it certainly can. Thousands of companies, each spamming millions of people, creates a…