But if the site relies on cookies and localStorage and cannot work without it, "no" option is equivalent of "ban".

And it's their computer that allows the usage of cookies and localstorage. All modern web browsers has an option to disable them. It's technically stupid.

Nah, the equivalent is "using the website with degraded experience", not "can't read the article, we'll redirect you to the home page instead".

> But if the site relies on cookies and localStorage and cannot work without it, "no" option is equivalent of "ban".

This - unless I misread it - is flat out wrong for most of the cookie warnings I see.

There's no valid reason for a news site to need cookies or similar except for logins.

It can be proved easily by wiping cookies and verifying the site still works.

I think they're saying that a lot of sites use cookies instead of the web storage api to store the option on the dialog, meaning that even if the dialogue are opt-in, they won't work unless the user enables cookies.

Basically a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between cookies and local storage on the part of the web developers of many sites; i.e. cookies are sent with every request, whereas localstorage isn't and these sites should be storing the option to not use cookies in the localstorage instead of cookies, and I think I'm repeating myself because I haven't had my coffee after taking a nap, but that's neither here nor there or anywhere.

> GDPR does explicitly legislate against all that - dialogues should be "opt-in"

That's can't be a real part of GDPR, can it? I don't see how you can fine someone for shitty website design.

They should, in theory, fine websites that do install cookies before you give consent, or refuse to give sevice that doesn’t strictly require cookies (e.g. an article).

If the cookie only stores the preference to not show the dialog box. That should be GDPR compliant.

You should be using localstorage from the web storage API and not cookies. Cookies are sent to the server with every request. Local Storage is not.

How do you suppose the site make money off their visits? To me what you want sounds like freeloading.

You seem to have no problem 'freeloading' HN.

They don't run ads to generate revenue. Most content sites do.

You can definitely put ads without deep profiling. They can even be relevant. Just advertise for fishing accessories in fishing articles. Or hardware load balancers on Slashdot. Why not? Better than serving me whatever someone in my family has looked before (that is if I didn't have an adblocker for the past 10 tears)

Probably most content people read does not easily translate to a product as in your fishing example. Generally, ads with no targeting are not very profitable.

My point was there can be targeting on content. Magazines have ads. Are they as profitable as privacy invading content ? Maybe not but they're tolerable.

There are ads on the front page designed to look like content.

There are ads on HN (the "xyz is hiring", and I suspect a non-zero number of articles posted/promoted to the front page are paid ads made to look like content.

The hiring ads are not external ads. HN is 100% a marketing and PR tool to generate good will amongst developers, and startup founders.

If it ever starts to not benefit ycombinator, then the aite goes away.

Ok so how's that work for a news site? Don't they need some kind of tracking to get relevant info on what their users are interested in?

You can gauge user interest by, for example, counting page views. You don't need to fingerprint users, create a catalog of all articles they view, try to guess their interest in certain topics using "AI", and do all the other absurdity that they think they "need" to do now.

IMO you could just go to another site that doesn't. To each their own.