[dekhn]

You're conflating "consequences and effects" with "function". The former is things that happen due to the physics, the latter is about intent or utility.

"Taking up space in the genome is a function" is a great example of this. While I'm sure you can find examples of "spacers that when deleted are fatal", the fitness effect of protein-coding regions that contain no utility is still an area of research. To me, functionality requires selection, although that's probably not necessary or sufficient!