I appreciate your attempting to reconcile different anecdotal experiences. In the spirit of objectivity however, I would insist that big businesses are not breaking the law.
> The free, informed consent which the letter of GDPR requires according to public and legally binding official interpretations (such as from the European Court of Justice) is not present when those dark patterns make it harder to refuse consent than to grant it.
I think here we've shifted the problem to dark patterns. The problem though is with the popups at all, because even when they are compliant, they are no less annoying, just slightly more clear.
> The problem in all of these respects is primarily very weak and reluctant official enforcement of the rules by the relevant Data Protection Authorities and very low fines when they do enforce them.
They probably shouldn't have claimed global jurisdiction then. Since that's a big part of what has resulted in so many poorly done cookie banners.