By selling advertiser space via their website and newsletter they encourage people to sign up for. You can tell the one in the OP is focused on that in their advertise page https://openalternative.co/advertise and the ad for the owners other platforms which help people monetize list/data table sites like this.
Both are setup to profit from these recommendations, especially the one in the OP. I’m not suggesting these aren’t useful sites, but that there are financial motivations at play as well
The only moral theft is my theft.
Wordpress makes up like 40% of the Internet depending on the source of the claim. I’m pretty sure it’s used for more than just blogs.
But that’s one way it used to be, making connections that requires effort to engage with (calling, emailing, etc). If you want to give up the convenience of any particular online social network you have to do the work to foster those relationships differently.
Give your email out to people. Ask for theirs. Send the emails. Call them if they give you their number.