Every site should get to ask for cookie permissions only once - through the browser - (like with notifications or location), and the browser should remember the user’s preferences and never ask again.
Don't they all do that? Per-site cookie management in the browser has been around since IE6 if not earlier:
Instead of it being something the user has to manually find in settings and configure, the browser can show an unobtrusive prompt for the user to agree whenever a site tries to store a cookie for the first time.
There could also be changes to the cookie standard that allow specifying if a cookie is “essential”, so browsers can permit them by default, or “non-essential”, so the browser should prompt the user.