Is it a popup. For example, as a text-only browser user, i.e., no Javascript engine, I generally never see cookie consent popups. (I also control whether cookies are sent via a localhost-bound forward proxy.) However I am starting to notice cookie consents placed in the HTML of the page. This is one example. The cookie consent is wrapped in <div> tags.

To get rid of the cookie consent in this case,

   curl https://img.ly/blog/ultimate-guide-to-ffmpeg/|sed 's/<div class=\"cke-overlay\">/<!--&/;s/<main class=\"main u-relative \">/-->&/' > 1.htm
   firefox ./1.htm

Another way is to use the AMP URL:

   links https://img.ly/blog/ultimate-guide-to-ffmpeg/amp/

AMP actually looks great in a text-only browser such as links.

It may also be possible to remove a <div>-based cookie consent using a browser Add-On like uBlock Origin.

If it were up to me, cookie consents would be done via HTTP headers. The user could simply set their client to send an HTTP header indicating no consent. Something like

   Cookie-consent: False

I use a localhost-bound forward proxy to selectively send cookies where they are actually needed. Thus it is not browser-specific. It works with any client, e.g., netcat.

I agree with this one. On mobile it's a full-screen capture, too. Totally overboard. Why would a reference guide even need cookies? If the author is worried about lawyers, I'd just ditch the cookie use altogether.

How long before browsers have a built in setting to automatically tell these cookie prompts "essential cookies only please"?

If they're running anything tracking related then they need to gather consent. It's not complicated.