It does mandate cookie banners. The client I worked for on the last project got fined because they were missing a cookie banner.

The solution is much simpler - ban targeted ads. The entire purpose of collecting user data is to deliver targeted ads.

Nah, they were fined for tracking users without consent.

And cookie banners are what exactly? That's right, you ask users to consent to use cookies to track them. Thus, cookie banners are REQUIRED because you can't run a business without any insight into how your users use your product.

I don’t know if people are noticing this but apple.com doesn’t have a cookie banner. It’s perfectly possible to operate a website – even a shop – without having a cookie banner. Even one of the biggest here in Europe in terms of revenue. As OP said, cookie banners are just malicious compliance. You don’t need one unless you’re doing shady things. Unfortunately it looks like the advertisers and trackers are winning as the EU is planing to relax the rules. I believe there would have been another way, something like banning unnecessary tracking altogether.