[nolok]

> The reality is that I (and others who are complaining, as well as many who have resigned themselves to their fate) are happy to have a website "track me", certainly if the cost of non-tracking are having to click away an annoying popup

The you should doubly blame the companies, because that's what do not track was for, they're the one who decided to make it not work that way and instead being ignored and not considered a valid option for the law.

> think that people who compare a website wanting to know the number of their visitors to "hidden fees" are kind of being ridiculous.

You don't need a cookie for that, and what GDPR has told us is that we're not talking of that but about dozens or hundreds on every major sites so trying to frame it that way is disingenuous.