Cookie banners are a design problem

A cookie banner is the first thing a visitor meets and the last thing anyone designs. It covers the photograph you paid for, it asks a question nobody wants to answer, and the honest version of it is a small legal document.

The interesting part is that most small sites do not need one.

What the banner is actually for

A banner exists because something on the page is storing an identifier on the visitor, or handing data to a third party. Take those two things away and there is nothing left to ask about.

Visitor statistics are usually the only reason a small site has a banner at all. Ours are first party and cookieless: a visitor is recognised for the day by hashing the request against a secret that rotates, and then that ability is simply gone. Nothing is stored on the visitor. Nothing is sent anywhere else.

When you still want one

The moment you add a video embed, a chat widget or an advertising pixel, you are back in banner country. So the banner is still in the box, it still ships with Dutch, English, German and French copy, and its analytics category genuinely blocks the script rather than decorating the page.

The point is that it should be a decision, not a default. Ask for consent when you are actually doing something that needs it.

An account, a starting point, and a form that sends you a real email. Nothing is public until you say so.