On a site like HN you'd expect a significant proportion of people to be willfully ignorant and/or make excuses about this stuff because it helps them sleep at night.

I have been suspecting for a while that the "consent" escape hatch was a concession to get GDPR past the advertising industry's army of lobbyists. Making the problem in-your-face-visible is hopefully only the first step in garnering support from the public. It's much easier for a politician to point to all the obnoxious pop-ups and say "look at this despicable behavior! These companies choose to nag you at every opportunity because abusing your privacy makes them a couple cents. They should just not be allowed to do that."