> half a dozen consent popups every day
I don't see any such things. What I got is many emails when GDPR started and companies asked me to click a link so that they can keep my data and emails saying that they changed privacy. I didn't click any of those links.
BTW I use ad blocker and that hides many nonsense. Even before GDPR there were too many of these dickbars[1] everywhere and I'm annoyed at those. Every site has those subscribe to email popup and other dickbars floating around.
So GDPR didn't make things worse like you say. Although the internet has become worse with tracking everywhere and stupid designs making us suffer.