David Heinemeier Hansson

The post criticizes the EU's approach to tech legislation, using cookie banners as an example of bureaucratic inefficiency that annoys users without significantly improving privacy. It argues that Europe's legislative failures hinder its ability to foster tech innovation and compares it unfavorably to other regions like the US. The author calls for a radical rethink of how Europe legislates technology to avoid wasting the potential of its smart and capable entrepreneurs.

Cookie banners show everything that's wrong with the EU

I’m a bit confused by this post, it reads more that you just don’t like cookie banners because… they’re done poorly?
There’s no real examples of any potential fixes that could be done other than just saying “It sucks”.

The opening itself shows right on that the problem is the companies, not the EU. “Companies have spent billions on cookie banner compliance only to endlessly annoy users …”
Almost every company, with a few exceptions, purposely trick the users. They (illegally) design the accept all button so that users rather click it. They make it (illegally) difficult to deny specific cookies. They often (illegally) make it difficult to decline all cookies.
it should have started with “Companies have spent billions on scammy cookie banner compliance with the goal to endlessly trick, confuse and annoy users …”
If companies (some do!) would focus on the reason behind cookie banners, giving people the OPTION to accept cookies, instead of trying their best to hide the option to decline them, the cookie banners wouldn’t be annoying or confusing. Even better, they should focus on (the already mandatory law) to data minimization. Yet, they try to find ways to gather as much data as possible.
News sites, tech companies, social media, track you with 600+ cookies per fucking website for no legitimate reason. And yet some authors blame the EU instead of the companies that try their best to circumvent the law for their own good and to drain userdata as much as possible.
If the EU is to blame for anything, then it is because they gave users and NGOs to few rights to sue fucking shady companies, which sadly are most of the companies. And maybe for making the law not strict enough.

The actual problem is data hungry advertisers. everything else is bandaid.

I completely agree with this. Cookies aren’t a real privacy problem. They can track you from site to site with information such as your phone number, the browser add-ons you have, etc. It’s very easy.
But the EU policy makers are people that couldn’t get elected in their countries or were chosen as a protest against the EU itself. It’s an inherently flawed and undemocratic entity.
The sooner it’s gone, the better. For everyone.

A bunch of old people deciding a bunch of stuff they know nothing off. Nothing new here.
Biggest issue with the policies they come up with is that they are unpolicable. It just costs way too much money. Here in the Netherlands we have fairly strict privacy laws, even compared to the eu. But an authoritative body with no money and nowhere near enough capacity.
And people who are tech savvy enough just blindly accept all cookies and clear browser caches everytime