Analysis of economic and productivity losses caused by cookie banners in Europe

People blame the cookie banners themselves or the legislation that "made them necessary" but somehow never seem to blame the web companies for doing the naughty things on their websites that make them subject to the law.

The "cookie banner problem" exists because it's primarily end users that are shouldering the burden of them, and not the companies. For the company, it's a one time JIRA ticket for a junior software engineer to code up a banner. For everyone else, it's thousands of wasted seconds per year. Make the law hit companies where it hurts: their balance sheets.

I hope you'll be glad to know that this law already hits companies where it hurts, because many people will close the tab after the slightest annoyance.

I hope you're happy that this law already encourages people to stay within a few big websites (where they've already clicked away the cookie banner) and not explore anything new (where they'd have to click away a cookie banner every time).