Comment by tombrossman

> Do you feel like PGP is a good way to cold email people in practice?

Not OP but I can definitely say that's a yes from me after doing this repeatedly. I cold email people once a month or so, and if it is to do with anything sensitive I'll check to see if a public key is available for them (on their website is best, else I check a public key server and use that key as long as there is only one listed).

I get a better response rate from PGP/GPG users too, I can only recall one not responding to an encrypted message and I sent a follow-up message unencrypted which they responded to.

I think it's important to send PGP messages for ordinary communications whenever possible, because this normalizes it and may increase the workload for those trying to defeat it.