[Grimblewald]

given dark patterns employed to date, what makes you think this would generally work? If i wanted to capture all consent-o-matic users, I'd simply use text of buttons that don't line up with what the buttons descriptors are. human users are still able to hit the correct buttons succesfully but automated scripts start submitting "please, 3d scan my rectum at your first conveniance" style settings, and you'd never know unless you start using a whole suite of addons to prevent scripts form other sites, tracking cookies etc. from loaidng which itself suffering an arms race of its own that corporate interest is an attrition heavyweight in.

So, my problem remains, why do I now need an extra point of failure to surf the web due to something that was supposed to make it less, not more, hostile to do?

One could have acheived the same by simply banning addblock and cookie block detection. Simply let users set, in any privacy friendly browser or addon, whatever they like, and have it work reliably because industry isnt allowed to subvert.

Acheives the same while introducing less moving parts. the web is crazy bloated as it is, we need to trim back not stack on more.