The problem is that those ads could not be pay-per-click because you need cookies, javascripts and other tricks to combat clickfraud and impression spam.

If that USA Today site sticks around and adds advertising, it will presumably be low quality inventory like the internet used to be flooded with - casinos, punch the monkey etc.

Cookie & javascript aren't forbidden...

You can have sensible context-sensitive advertising without problem with GDPR. You just can't target a specific reader using its behaviour

No it will be high quality, like an astronomy magazine negotiating a deal with a telescope producing business.

The shitty early-web ads were already a result of shady 3rd-party ad networks selling private data.

Does a paper magazine need to run unsavoury ads? Because they don't have pay-per-click. They don't even record impressions, they have to negotiate the deal beforehand with the advertiser.

As I understand, you still can use cookies and IP addresses, but you should not keep them for long time and should not give those data to Google and Facebook. Do you really need to track user across all the Internet (like Google and Facebook do) and keep that data forever, buy and sell them to data brokers? Definitely not.

I don't want data about me to be someone's asset. I want an Internet shop to delete data about me as soon as possible after I made a purchase. That's why I want GDPR in my coutry too.

Is it reasonable to attribute ignorance of laws on another continent with stupidity?

Is nobody outside of America ignorant of these laws?

Also, how much of the internet technology and content you use and consume was created by Americans? Probably quite a lot.

Why so rude?