EDIT: I didn't realize the anger this would bring out of people. It was supposed to be a funny meme based on recent real-life situations I've encountered, not an attack on the EU.
I appreciate the effort of the EU cookie laws. The practice of them just doesn't live up to the theory of the law. Shady companies are always going to find a way to be shady.
They’re still widely used for some (illegal) reason
Because they rest safe in the knowledge that you rarely if ever get taken to court for it. There are millions of web pages, it needs people to take action to do something about it, and just clicking “Yes all of them” to access the content you were just trying to get to is a far better solution in most situations than hiring a lawyer and investing a few years of legal proceedings, nevermind the money.
There is an organization called nyob (I think) pushing back against that and going through the courts to have more sites penalized for their violations. The process is slow, but I see more and more pages adopting the required “reject all” so there seems to be some pressure on them.