Comment by Pooge
I agree that the GDPR could have gone much further but making data harvesting illegal was never the point—and this is not my opinion.
Websites could show a small banner that says "hey, we use cookies for targeted advertising; click here to opt in to them" but instead chose to use a full-screen pop-up where you can't even navigate properly if you don't click. Hell, some don't even have an easy to access "Reject all" button—I even wonder if it's legal.
While I admit cookie banners are a side effect of the GDPR, they only came to be because that's what the industry chose. Claiming that the reason Big Tech did not honor DNT is because there was no legal requirement is true but not the full picture; they ignored it because it is against their advertising incentives.
GDPR should be even more radical for sure but none of what they enacted was a mistake.
Cookie law banners are almost never full-screen. They do often impede clicks on a website ("why can't I click? Oh, I'm zoomed in and the cookie banner is below the viewport now") but very few are as outright obtrusive as a screen-dimming "you have an ad blocker!" or "please join our mailing list!" prompts. At least in my experience.
But that's beside the point. My point (generally) is that what the industry wants is irrelevant. I'm sure many industries would like to pay below minimum wage, or employ children, or deny sick days. It's legislation (and labor unions, but I'm not going down that road right now.) that stops them. Legislators put a stop to all of that because it's bad for people and society beyond that company's bottom line. Governments are the ones who have the tax-collecting, police-enforcing ability and no one else.
Sites abide by the rules as they're read and the precedent of their enforcement. Maybe the only change that needs to be made is an explicit definition of good vs bad cookie banners. And real enforcement of those rules. That's above my pay grade.
But I'd like to go back to my original point: regulations being good or bad is in the eye of the beholder. Things that are ultimately good may have annoying effects on the few impacted. Like EV mandates which are great for emissions but deny car enthusiasts their vrooms. Or energy efficient refrigerators which don't have pull-out drawers like American ones did in the 1950s. Or compostable wooden spoons which send shivers down my spine when I put them in my mouth. Often this is a head vs heart distinction, and I accept that.
The GDPR is not an exception to this, and considering the immense power imbalance between the tech giants and the average person, the only counter we really have are legislators who need to take that responsibility seriously.