So browsers have started to roll out GPC, or basically browser-based consent. This was explicitly designed to deal with intrusive cookie banners. I’ve now noticed several websites with the same intrusive banners recognizing that you opted out but begging you to opt back in anyway. These banners are so big as to obscure the majority of the content on the site.
These aren’t tech companies, they’re just ad-driven publications
But yeah I remember the Do Not Track signal ironically being used to track you. And I remember Microsoft make it completely useless because they turned it on by default.
tech companies are the ones pushing the ad based model. mainly google, whose main source of revenue at the time was selling ultra-targeted ads.