Adtech companies have worked hard to make you associate privacy with annoying popups.

They've lobbied hard to water down tracking bans to be "user choice", and then used dark patterns/malicious compliance to make not agreeing a horrible experience to wear people down, so that people just give up on privacy.

They should ban the pop ups, and make the cookies opt in. Done. Easy.

It’s so irritating that this can’t be an HTTP header. Then again, we probably have the failure of DNT to thank for that.

The problem was the DNT was optional, so there was no legal method to force a website to obey it.

Maybe it's a cunning ploy to condition people into agreeing to anything if only it means they can see the damn content?

I already instantly accept cookies without hesitation.

no doubt that's what 99% of people do. just like terms of service, it's an automatic click through and a waste of everyone's time.