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

I am kind of frustrated by the widespread misunderstandings in this thread.

Laws are best when they are abstract, so that there is no need for frequent updates and they adapt to changing realities. The European "cookie law" does not mandate cookie banners, it mandates informed consent. Companies choose to implement that as a banner.

There is no doubt that the goals set by the law are sensible. It is also not evident that losing time over privacy is so horrible. In fact, when designing a law that enhances consumer rights through informed consent, it is inevitable that this imposes additional time spent on thinking, considering and acting.

It's the whole point, folks! You cannot have an informed case-by-case decision without spending time.

Such basic functionality as cookies shouldn't need explicit consent. The consent is you navigated to the webpage, if you don't like it you can use a browser that doesn't set cookies.

Tracking people with cookies is the part that requires consent.

Setting cookies that aren’t used to track people, doesn’t require consent.

The consent is for tracking that happens to use cookies, not for cookies themselves.