You assume the dark patterns and the dark pattern blockers are written by the same people. I, for one, have probably written shitty code and badly designed UI in the past, but I've always refused to become a sleazy salesman, even back when I was doing customer support. I use element blocking all the time but I'm not going to put effort into these shitty websites and I doubt most devs will either. I'm also not installing blocking extensions for every website I visit.

Luckily, even non-technical people are downloading browsers with adblockers that come prepopulated with all kinds of filters, not just basic ads anymore. Opera has run a surprisingly effective ad campaign, for example. All it takes is for one of these browsers to take a more aggressive stance against these dark patterns. Brave already comes with a whole bunch of "annoyance" filters ready to be enabled.

I've told "normal" people about how bad Booking.com is, showed them how they manipulated you, but those people either didn't see the problem ("everyone is trying to manipulate you so what") or don't want to find another website. As long as the government won't step in, and consumers won't stop falling for these tricks, nothing will change. The technical problem is solved, but greedy developers and developers without morals (or the freedom to refuse) need to be fought by other means.

The problem is, nobody cares except for a bunch of ad blocking nerds.