It's not about cookies. The legislation and the consent popups are not about cookies. They're not even about whether they're essential.
The banners are there for you to opt-in to your activity on the website and beyond to be tracked by a 3rd party, possibly across multiple other websites.
We do not need to discuss whether a cookie is essential, because it's a red herring. It's not about cookies, it's about behavioural tracking, it's about your browser activity being sent to 3rd parties, being collated and used to e.g. serve you advertisements to sell you shit.