It provides a modicum of social and legal enforcement. A website with any sort of brand risks legal and PR costs if they violate DNT. I'm happy for them to take that risk.
Legal risks? I'm unaware that it's ever been enforceable anywhere, and I don't think there's ever been enough awareness of its existence to cause reputational damage.
Personally I think the whole thing fell through the moment it was conceived in 2009. We're going to ask nicely that people who are tracking us, who know that we don't want to be tracked anyway, kindly refrain? The whole idea was laughable.
Its advocates got annoyed when Microsoft enabled it by default on a version of IE several years ago, as then it wouldn't be perceived as a reliable indicator of intent. This really just exposed the problem with the whole thing, that it was going to be hidden away in settings where few people would go, and rely on the good will of effectively known-bad actors to respect it, and just maybe they would respect it if we keep it more-or-less a secret that only techy people bother with.
(Sorry, this rant is not aimed at you, it's just a bit of a pet hate)
This is all valid. But like I said, it was always about social and PR pressure (edit with reputable sites). (I was mistaken earlier when I thought it also had the force of law behind it.) That still has some, depreciating, value. To repeat my question, what else is there?
Though I see now that the whole thing has fallen through since around 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track. Oh well.
Going back to my original comment, if there's a better way to read say the NYTimes without being tracked by the NYTimes, I'd like to hear it.