>>Apparently THE LAW can force companies to put up these annoying popups
Where do the law force companies to use annoying popups? I see the annoying popups as companies doing all they can do try to make users feel it is the laws fault and not the sites fault that a site require to get consent using an annoying popup. In most of the cases the popup do nothing except of annoy the users, is often no difference in what is loaded before or after users are tricked into giving consent.
To follow the law you could only handle data directly relevant to the functionality of the site/app or you could have a place where users could select reject all or see what to allow. Allow all or see more, like for instance google is using, is not following the law