alt Hacker NewsI get your point about not wanting to reduce speed, but it's worth considering how the law might react in a worse-case scenario.
Here in the UK, there was an infamous case of Charlie Alliston who ended up getting a ridiculous 18 months prison sentence after colliding with a pedestrian who hit her head and subsequently died. He was riding a "fixie" without a front brake and was cycling at around 18mph through some green traffic lights. The pedestrian was crossing the road further on (i.e. not at a junction which is fairly normal) and wasn't paying enough attention, so Charlie shouted at her to get out of his way. He started to reduce speed (rear brake only), but then decided that he could just aim for the gap behind her, but she then reacted to his shouting by stepping backwards into his path.
The point is that the judge awarded such a tough sentence partly due to Charlie not taking all available actions to avoid a collision and also because his bike was illegal to use on the road due to having just one brake. So, if you rely on a bell to clear your path, you could be held liable if they don't respond and you collide.
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I don't know, the sentence doesn't sound ridiculous if you're cycliing at 18mph towards someone, without a front brake, and your precaution is "it's OK, I can guess which way they're going to go".
To be clear, I am still reducing my speed if I don't get positive confirmation that I've been noticed or if there's not enough time for a reaction to even happen.
My bell just gives me the significant improvement of possibly getting a reaction from the pedestrian long before I need to start braking.
However, not everybody does cycle like that. And while legally and ethically dubious, the bell still helps in that case as well.