This is a persistent stupid take but many HN readers are also on the wrong side of the consumer protection. Those startups don't make money out of thin air eh?
Once again. The full consumer protection would be banning behavior-based advertisement completely, which I would welcome. GDPR is striking a balance. It forces the companies to ask if they are going to collect data and use it in any other purpose from delivering the information / service.
Almost all of the web is feeding data into Google's ad and statistics services which are used to profile people and completely out of scope. That's the minimum. Worser services feed your data into every single PII broker. If you don't collect such data, no banners are necessary. If you need an address and an email to just ship a product, you need 0 cookie banners. The websites can also do geo-fencing so you don't see any banners. They don't want to spend any money to engineers though.
But no, it is EU's fault to create a balanced law. Companies should be violating you and your pricacy left and right. That's their right, isn't it.