[hankman86]

At the end of the day, legislators need to weigh the consequences of regulation like the GDPR. Has it really helped people retain control over their personal data? I doubt it. Sure, companies like Meta and Google are compliant, have added the necessary features to their products. But to what degree do people actually make use of these? And what harm (if any) is averted in this way.

On the flip side, consider the economic cost that was caused by the GDPR. There are compliance and reporting obligations that require time and personell. There are additional development and monitoring costs. There is an impact on business models that have made it more difficult to monetise a user base. And lastly, there is a huge legal risk. Courts are scrambling to interpret the GDPR and the EU commission is happy to dish out fines (albeit mostly against American Big Tech companies).

On the bottom line, even well-intended legislation like the GDPR may have huge economic costs with little tangible benefits. And that’s not to speak about later legislation like the DSA (censorship) law, the DMA, the AI Act. And worst of all, the supply chain law (even though that’s unlikely to be as much of an issue for the software industry).

[dariosalvi78]

Nah, the GDPR has pushed a lot of good principles directly into business decisions. It's not perfect , sure, but the mentality has changed also because of the GDPR. Compliance has zero cost, if you avoid certain decisions. AI act? We'll see. There are other regulations that are far more costly and designed for big companies with fat legal departments.

As for EU research projects, I agree with most that has been said, but there are some very good exceptions. The problem with EU research programmes is that they offer often too research and little businesses opportunities.