I happened to click a link that took me to the associated ~~twitter~~ X account for something I was interested in and was greeted by not one, not two, but four modern day web popups.
I know it's nothing new. I've got a couple of firefox plugins that are usually quite good at hiding this sort of nonsense, but I guess they failed me today (or, I shudder to think, there were even more that were blocked, and this is what got through)
What's the worst new/not-signed-in user experience you've encountered recently?
EU: "You can't just collect people's data, you have to ask permission first and give people the opportunity to decline."
Site Developers: "Fine, but we're going to comply in the most malicious manner possible."
HEY DO YOU WANT COOKIES ARE YOU SURE PLEASE HIT THE BIG BLUE BUTTON FOR COOKIES THEY ARE HELPFUL AND GOOD PLEASE GIVE COOKIES!!!!!
It'd be fun if the EU started policing any use of the phrase "We are required to show this dialog".
They're not. They choose to show that dialog so that they can try to apply commercial tracking cookies. Anything for website function is already covered by EU laws.
There have been a couple of changes to the rule since it came into effect. Originally, the pop up could effectively occlude the "Do Not Enable Cookies" button behind a maze of "Optional" settings. The end result was a big colorful "I Consent" button and a tiny little gear button with a thousand manual checkboxes to uncheck every time you visited the site.
The regulations were updated since. Now these annoying pop-ups at least tend to have a clearly defined "Yes, I Consent" / "No, I Do Not" at equal scale and opposite color, allowing you to bypass it without going into the weeds on a configuration screen.
It's hilarious on a widescreen setup how many websites aren't adaptive but that cookie pop-up blocks 3/4 in 5000% font size.