>The most natural implementation of the EU directive would be to have a place in User Settings where users can go and enable targeted advertising if they want it.

And why would we assume that these companies would follow the "most natural implementation"?

The very predictable response of the industry to the EU directive was to make the cookie banners as annoying as invasive as possible, such that users would consent to tracking out of apathy. No, it's not what the EU intended to happen, but it was a consequence. Which brings me back to my original point: often times idealic and well-intentioned measure have negative consequences.

In hindsight, perhaps the EU should've legislated that the UX for the tracking content cannot be unreasonably annoying. I don't know how I'd go about codifying that into law though.