If their site is already Wordpress and they ask you to fix it, then your job is to fix their Wordpress site. Where is the shame and disrespect in that?
I agree about the spammy notifications and PHP code snippets. But sometimes code snippets can save time. It's better to have 10 code snippets to achieve 10 fixes, than 10 plugins to address those same fixes.
There must be a lot of developers out there paying their rent and feeding the cat from Wordpress plugin subscription earnings. While this does encourage the spammy ecosystem, it also encourages competition between plugin authors to maintain and develop quality plugins that do the job.
> Do these people actually not realize there's far better things out there?
I'd be interested to hear what good replacements there are for Wordpress+WooCommerce? I find WooCommerce slows down Wordpress, regardless of caching plugins and other tricks. It's annoying, and I'm genuinely interested in alternatives with as much flexibility and support?