It's not that you get punched in the face if you 'accept all'.
It is that you create a small but real possibility to suffer from it in the future. Like getting a lottery ticket to win something like paying more for your flight, being denied insurance or bank loan, being subjected to political manipulation, having your name published alongside your sexual preferences, or, to nicely round it up, being selected for participation in a governmental work camp. All of this did happen in the past, albeit not to everyone of course, of course.
Those are paranoid things to worry about. Can you name a single example of someone in Europe who was denied some sort of insurance because they clicked on the wrong cookie consent button?
If my government wants to put me in a work camp will Europe's cookie consent laws protect me? None of this makes sense.
It is that you create a small but real possibility to suffer from it in the future. Like getting a lottery ticket to win something like paying more for your flight, being denied insurance or bank loan, being subjected to political manipulation, having your name published alongside your sexual preferences, or, to nicely round it up, being selected for participation in a governmental work camp. All of this did happen in the past, albeit not to everyone of course, of course.