But I don't want to delete cookies? I want websites to use cookies that are technically necessary e.g. for keeping me logged in. I just don't want them to use it to track my behavior especially inter-website.
... or cargo culted a site that did. I think this is far more common. It's almost like you're not a serious web site if you don't have a cookie popup of some kind.
> You think the average user is going to explicitly whitelist
When prompted by the browser on first login/signup, yes, the same way the password manager works. With stored passwords, keeping the login cookie doesn't even add much value.
Every time you get a cookie banner with options, the website wants to know more about you than the law permits by default.