Yet somehow lots of places use the click-one-link-to-unsubscribe method and it seems to work. What are they doing differently?

The follow up confirmation screen feels slimy to me like some kind of cable company retention tactic. That's why I called it a dark pattern.

I don't think it's slimy. They could provide a simple, complete unsubscribe button in addition to a list of subtopics to check/uncheck. Maybe I only want to unsubscribe from their blog, or I still want to receive feature update news but not their sales catalog.

As a person who ends up clicking a lot of unsubscribe links: I definitely see it as slimy.

I would rather companies just didn't subscribe me, so having to click an unsubscribe link is already a problem. The more confirmation they have, the more I take it as biased and manipulative.

If I click a link to claims to unsubscribe me, then that's exactly what it should do. I have no problem with a page to manage account preferences, but don't label the UI element that leads there as unsubscribe.

Do you also not like links called "Contact"?