I wonder if it's that or if it's also a case of marketing departments going wild with GTM and Segment and the like, literally throwing the kitchen sink in front of the user's experience in a desperate attempt to measure and drive 'engagement'.

I mean, if you take a news website like The Independent, there's not a chance in hell that a competent design and engineering team would sign off on all the bullshit that is dumped on top of the page. It's always added on at runtime.