Just because website purposefully give a terrible UX in an effort circumvent the law does not mean the law is wrong. It's the implementation.
The point of GDPR is that they shouldn't have any bad gut feeling about accepting these terms - because anything even slightly shady, in any way beyond the most basic necessities for performing the service, must be opt-in by default, set to "no consent".
Alas, national data protection agencies are way too reluctant to chase the offenders and issue fines, so a big chunk of the sites on the Internet are breaking the law with impunity.
The problem is that you could frame almost anything like that
Take an extreme example: Let’s imagine gold traders were allowed to go around taking people’s jewellery at gunpoint. Gold would be cheaper to buy. Traders make more profit. More jobs! Surely this is a win all round? Of course not, for obvious reasons.
Competition is not a an excuse for damaging your rights
And your example of clicking through 20 scary messages is because the websites, as is pointed out in the article, are not complying with GDPR
GDPR is about data collection, not about cookies.
Using cookies for core functionality instead of tracking does not require consent. Tracking without cookies does require consent.
Make it so every page that contains a tracking element MUST permanently display a large-ish (say, 1% of the screen for each) seal/label indicating that it is tracking you (like ESRB labels). That way, website will be pushed to remove the tracking elements so that they can remove the offending banners.
In the end this option still hampers genuine users of those websites. That is the point and instead of people taking issue with the website tracking them, they'll complain about the banners instead.
Just look at this entire comment section... No guys, the problem is not that the law is bad, it's that the state of the internet is absolutely fucking terrible. "Why do I have to click so many consent things?" - because everyone is tracking everything about you, this is the point!
For a company the size of Google, it's a slap on the wrist (especially when compared to the 5 billion euro fine from 2018 over antitrust violations) but they have been going after the big players. In fact most stories I've heard related to GDPR actions have exclusively been about big players getting fined.
Don't they currently have the same incentive? (And mostly don't act on it.)