No it didn't. Running a server today is dirt cheap compared to the bad old days. So is registering a domain. Getting a TLS certificate doesn't cost anything at all.
However, there are a lot more people here now. It used to be you could feasibly run a moderately popular website off a single server and it'd be fine. Now, with billions of people on the Internet, you need an army of servers distributed around the world if your site gets even remotely popular.
But also the consent banners are just clumsy and annoying.
That's a feature, not a bug. Consent banners were manufactured as a way to turn public opinion against GDPR and generate political pressure to repeal it. “Look at how those Europeans ruined the web!” GDPR was supposed to pressure these unscrupulous advertisers into giving up their spooky tracking, but they did this instead. And it's working—most people blame GDPR for ruining the web, not the sleazeballs who actually ruined it.