[mulmen]

I don’t think the article makes the case that tracking cookies are required. It only claims that automated reminders can benefit people, which is far less controversial.

The article gives instructions on how to turn this off and concludes with the classic warning about being the product.

[acidictadpole]

It's less controversial but also not really relevant. Those kinds of reminders shouldn't be using cookies, and don't need to.

[mulmen]

The part about tracking being arguably good is a separate paragraph that is clearly written in contrast to Google’s tracking.

At no point does the article claim cookies are required for “good” automation.