Implying that the majority of user's wouldn't just instantly click the largest button that says "make this annoying wall of legal text go away" whether that is agreeing to tracking or not?
While the inability to target ads based on data about you and your search history searches removes some amount of advertising income. Websites would still be allowed to show ads, and I would imagine that those ads can be specific to the article currently being viewed.
This is exactly how conventional TV advertising works, just because you don't know the gender, race, political views and entire life story of a website user, doesn't mean you can't get almost the same effect. You can target ads in general at specific content and hit most of the correct users anyway rather than targeting specific users and the content they have viewed in the past.
https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Behavioral-Targeting-Doubl...
Which is why you are perfectly capable of giving consent to other websites to do that.
"Surely anyone who disagrees with your feelings on this matter must be a sociopath, though."
No, just those who insist on a "take it or leave it" approach.