>The blog clearly works from the actual outcome lense. [...] The companies _could_ just not track.
No, you've inadvertently stated a contradiction. Your use of the word _"could"_ is literally a hope/wish/intention of the law.
In contrast, the actual outcome is that the companies didn't stop tracking. We _wish_ they would stop tracking. (I.e. "The companies _could_ just stop tracking us!") But that hope still doesn't change the observation of reality.
The law is not code. Equating hope with the intention of the law is a poor way to think about it. The law is to protect users against opaque companies and to enable them making informed choices.
If companies act maliciously to contort around the law and force users back to making uninformed choices, it is the companies' fault and not the law's. Companies could have followed the interpretation of the law unobstrusively. But they didn't.
Invoking "reality," semanticking a position, do not make Graham's position justified. Neither does it make the blog wrong.
No, you've inadvertently stated a contradiction. Your use of the word _"could"_ is literally a hope/wish/intention of the law.
In contrast, the actual outcome is that the companies didn't stop tracking. We _wish_ they would stop tracking. (I.e. "The companies _could_ just stop tracking us!") But that hope still doesn't change the observation of reality.