> At best, the GDPR only introduces a minor indirection, the problem of hoodwinking the "data subject" into clicking the accept button

True. Some people are daft enough to opt-in and click the "accept cookies" and "give my personal and location data to strangers" buttons. These people don't care about privacy and are beyond help.

> At worst, it gives them false sense of privacy, where there isn't much.

Those of us who bother to understand and use privacy law have very good protection thankyouverymuch.