For sure an interesting take. Is there really no way to bypass gdpr restrictions if the only functionality you need is unique visitors? It's been a while since I read the gdpr doc, so at what point does your activity become relevant to its restrictions?
I looked into this, and yes, there are some services that can do analytics without the cookie. E.g https://usefathom.com. However, the vast majority use cookies and the ones that don't often have a much higher cost.
Ultimately, some of these alternatives that avoid the cookie law are simply finding tech work arounds. I have no doubt in my mind that the gov would find a way to require popups for those services if they were more prevalent.
To track unique visitors you need cookies or some other form of client-side storage. In Europe that means, per ePrivacy which predates the GDPR, you need cookie consent.
