Most cookie screens are deliberately designed as bad UX to make it very difficult to properly opt out and very easy to accidentally and permanently opt-in.
Here the main goal is to get rid of it fast, which more often than not leads to accepting all cookies the site offers. And bad cookie UX ensures that.
I would actually prefer to never see a cookie popup and then deal with privacy another way, if that was an option.
My fast route out is to close the tab. Same for auto-playing audio, distracting animations/video, and other irritations.
So far I don't think I've missed out on anything of significance that way. There are some sites that are useful enough for me to have spent time clicking tens of things, beyond that it turns out that I can live quite happily without the others.
This is true, but if I recall correctly it's plainly against the law for them to do this. Websites continue to do it because they're fully aware that enforcement is laughable.
Yes, though technically no. IIRC it is against the letter of the law to make it harder to opt out than to opt in. So this behaviour would be fine if it was at least as painful to opt in.
> Websites continue to do it because they're fully aware that enforcement is laughable.
Pretty much.