The preponderance of dark UI/UX patterns in advertising and cookie consent pop-ups, as well as the grey-hat browser fingerprinting and DRM based tracking, unfortunately stand testament to exactly that.

Given that ~98% of Internet users couldn't even articulate what javascript does as part of their browsing experience, the exfiltration and reassembling of their PII via meta-data into sellable profiles for targeted auctions is completely beyond their capacity to comprehend or engage with. Thus consent is de facto ungrantable.

This only really rings true if the consent is informed, I don’t believe that that is the case.