We ask for your information to improve our service. We know that you opted out by selecting the "opt out" button in your web browser, but we're going to ignore that and try to trick you into opting in, since we're so special that your generic opt out probably doesn't apply to us. We will make it hard to identify which links are really buttons that you need to click to disagree to increase the probability that you will accidentally agree or agree out of frustration. If you don't agree, we'll make you sit through a two minute spinner while we during which time we do nothing since it takes no time at all to save a cookie on your computer that says "don't save any cookies".

I mean seriously. If the GDPR had any teeth, the companies that do this shit would be made to suffer. But since all they do is make us suffer and the EU dgaf I wonder what the point is. It's just so much privacy theatre.

Maybe there's a shift somewhere. But I can't feel it as a user.

Privacy is the point but enforcement is very much lacking. The GDPR is supposed to be enforced by the member states so the EU is not to blame – at least if by "EU" you mean the EU bodies. The EU as a whole, including its members and citizens may be but imo it's more accurate to say that it isn't coherent enough to actually have opinions.