And that's why I find the line of argumentation that says 'the consent law is fine, just give it more time' a bit frustrating. It is such a waste of time and energy, while it does not really tackle the core issue of data abuse, but it negatively impacts everyone's user experience.
I think that the law is not well adjusted plays a major role in the situation that we have today. We are in the fourth year of the law and I see no impulses that would lead to a world without full page overlays on most websites on first visit, where the only primary action is "Accept all". While I as a techie take the time to reject most cookies, the more tech-illiterate part of my family has already sold my firstborn child for a couple of news articles.
Every time I see one of the GDPR popups it incentivizes me to think "do I really need to access this content?" - and more and more often I just think "no" and delete the bookmark or make a mental note that "this website isn't worth the click".
That's actually a good question... how would you do that. I guess the website would need explicit consent to save a cookie with the information that you consent to nothing else.
They remind me of those little fan-like gadgets people sell online that goes in your car air intake and supposedly gives you more horsepower. I've always been amazed that there is enough of a market for things, that rather obviously do not work, for companies to actually bother making and selling these things.
There was a story yesterday about someone getting terribly upset about researchers probing the GDPR compliance of the website of a blogger. Some froth developed around people's mouths as the site in question was called a "victim" and any shrugs seen as "victim-blaming". (And I was thoroughly downvoted for pointing out that calling website owners "victims" was a bit more drama than was called for)
GDPR and similar legislation has, as you correctly pointed out, had disappointing results. There is no doubt that stronger regulation is needed to stop companies essentially spying on users for financial gain - just as there is no doubt that regulating this in a way that both helps, and doesn't just become an expensive waste of time, is hard.