> What I'm rejecting is that that's necessarily an undesirable state of affairs. Does the world really need the likes of Blur or DiscountMugs to succeed, when they have proven woefully incapable of protecting the most basic forms of user data?
Again, I'm saying that the cost is borne by all startups, not just the ones you don't like. For startups, the main cost of GDPR isn't fines, it's less investment money and more compliance costs. That means good startups and bad startups alike must pay the price. They have equal chances of being killed in the cradle by these costs.
> I'm sorry that you have had to spend a tonne of money to attain GDPR compliance. I imagine most "incumbents" have had to spend a good deal as well; I can only hope that the next generation of companies have learnt from your company's mistakes and to structure their data processes from day 1 to avoid accruing such sensitive data in the first place.
The costs weren't high because of anything we were doing that was out of the ordinary. GDPR affects you if you even keep source IP addresses in your server logs. It mandates processes as well as restrictions. You have to train employees. You have to pay lawyers to ensure your processes are compliant. Even if everything you're doing is totally unobjectionable, the costs are significant. Current evidence indicates that many new companies are solving this problem by incorporating outside of the EU and avoiding doing business with EU customers until they're large enough to afford the costs of compliance.
> A tech sector with the same market cap? Unlikely, but we need to get over ourselves and question if preserving the techocracy's wealth is more important here.
You seem to have a zero sum view of wealth. Tech companies create wealth. They make things people want. Preventing companies from existing doesn't help others (except for incumbents with inferior products).