It’s an EU law, but it impacts us all in America as well… because you know, every fucking website

It is not an EU law. Nowhere in GDPR are cookie banners mandated.

Actually big tech is to blame: https://killthecookiebanner.eu/

The cookie disaster is thanks to the ePrivacy Directive, which came before GDPR:

- https://www.edps.europa.eu/data-protection/our-work/subjects...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPrivacy_Directive

we could have settled on privacy compliant tracking without cookies, which is possible or use browser preferences and respect those (which would be perfectly legal)