You are correct. In early days of the GDPR people thought about a page in front of the original page without any data collection presenting only the privacy information.
But soon there was an agreement that Art 13 lit. 4 could be interpreted that as long as you don't have any data collection beyond server logs this would be deemed as sufficient. Or in other words if you won't invoke the Art 21 lit. 1 of the GDPR.
But since everybody wants to track you on basis of their legitimate interest the web became full of cookie banners
But soon there was an agreement that Art 13 lit. 4 could be interpreted that as long as you don't have any data collection beyond server logs this would be deemed as sufficient. Or in other words if you won't invoke the Art 21 lit. 1 of the GDPR.
But since everybody wants to track you on basis of their legitimate interest the web became full of cookie banners