Yes all hail the EU.

Soon we'll have a popup before every individual show on Netflix asking us if we accept the cookies before we watch, all in the name of consumer protection

Cookie pops are malicious compliance to regulations that legitimately protect consumers. You’ve cherry picked one bad side effect to throw out all the ways the EU is way ahead of anyone else in protecting consumers, most of which you don’t even notice because it’s hard to notice harm that did not happen.