So now every site has cringe popups that nobody reads or understands, thanks regulators!!

It's not the law that mandates the awful UI of those popups... it's Google. I'm an adwords publisher, on my blog and a couple of (formerly!) popular web-apps. My sites were all compliant with the legislation, but not with Google's policy for adwords publishers. Their algorithm sent me an e-mail threatening to cut off my income unless I implemented one of their "approved" cookie scripts. As any fool knows, it's simply not possible to contact a real human at Google, so I was forced to do as they wished. So now all my sites have pointless, annoying cookie popups.

Everyone hates those popups, but don't blame the legislation - blame Google for forcing the whole Internet into malicious compliance.