Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cookie banners don't make companies less "careless" They just introduce a needless bit of friction in the UX. If the EU wanted to prevent digital identity triangulation or cross-domain advertising data gathering, it should have banned it outright. Rather than getting all users to click a stupid banner every time they visit a website.
The EU didn't mandate that annoying UI. That's malicious compliance from businesses who are trying to undermine the law.
That this is all a big conspiracy by nearly every company on the web against our precious overlords in the European Commission?