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.

Me navigating to a webpage is far from consent.

How do I even know that you want to try and farm my personal data until I go there?

Perhaps you should put a click through gateway that states that "proceeding on to this website will sell your personal information to spammy, scummy advertising".