“Yes the torment nexus didn’t work out in the classic scifi novel “Don’t build the torment nexus” but that was just because the people who built it where incompetent. Look, i am different, see I have billions of dollars I am definitely competent enough to make the torment nexus work.”

Except that the law says there has to be two options where you get to use it in addition to the default of just not using it.

It’s not clear yet whether its within the law. There is multiple complaints regarding this being filed across the eu, and noyb is actively campaigning for this to be investigated. The argument is that gdpr demands the user being given a real choice. However, most sites pick the monthly fee at 4-5 €, which seems low but is actually very offputting and deliberately chosen such that most people accept cookies instead. A strong indicator for this is that a paid subscription nets the site about 3€ a month, while ad revenue per user per month is only about 0,25 €. So you would think they could offer a lot lower subscription fees. The fact that they won’t means they really really want to track you and dark oattern you into accepting.