Cookies first appeared in Netscape on Oct 13, 1994 [1]. In 1994 the 'web' was a very different place and the current environment of web tracking and invasive advertising companies simply did not exist. And no one saw the privacy invading potential at the time.
> And no one saw the privacy invading potential at the time.
Maybe not the privacy invasion potential but ... As we got started building amzn in the fall of 94, it was a no-brainer decision to not use cookies even though they were just arriving. The controversy around the idea was intense and it was far from clear that they would be a success as a technology. It is likely true that there was more attention being paid to the "what? it lets a remote server create a file on my driver?" angle than the privacy one.
Yes, but someone here quoted an RFC showing that while people may not have understood this in 1994 they did in 1997. And now 25 years later the privacy issue was fixed.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie#History