A perfect counter-example to people rambling about EU legislation - Wikipedia.
Consistently in the top 10 sites in the world for 15 years, yet there's no cookie banner, no GDPR consent screen, no personal data hoarding, no dark patterns, etc.
Wikipedia doesn't need PII in order to operate so this is a terribly unfair comparison when you think of a service providing something more in depth than a wiki. They are also non-profit.
"Following the spirit of the law" is authoritarian non-sense. I can do whatever I want unless its illegal. If the law cannot or does not spell something out how is that the public's problem? We spend enough blood sweat and tears employing legislators and bureacrats. I am not going to also do their job for them.
