Copyright issues aside, my impression is that this solution is mostly in the spirit of GDPR. LA Times doesn't want to take the legal risk of being accidentally non-compliant (or doesn't want to go through the effort just yet), and outline.com is willing to act as a "wrapper website" that serves LA Times content while also following all EU rules around cookies. That means people in the EU are able to access the content without losing any privacy rights around cookies.

But you're right that it does validate the LA Times's decision to not spend resources on it, if there's an easy way to offload the legal worry to another company.