> This feels like a war on cookies, and there are bad things done with cookies, but I'm not sure if they're fighting on the right front long term here.

Problem is will-full misinformation. It's a war on tracking cookies, not session cookies for login state, etc. But all the cookie warning dialogs make it sound like it's a war on all cookies no matter what, so "just accept because otherwise this site won't work, also <insert clueless condescending remark about the cookie law>" (really, the amount of sites that use this dialog as a misinformation soapbox to vent against not being able to track their users...).