[professorgerm]

That's an optimistic view of dealing with government, that they would actually be reasonable and helpful. Many in the US have a decidedly pessimistic view of dealing with regulations and bureaucracy.

Uber versus Night School is an example of this. Uber: Ignore taxi regulations, get tons of VC, get rich while being awful people. Night School: try to work with government and play by the rules, fail, get used as a cautionary tale.

Source: https://psmag.com/economics/night-school-failed-because-it-f...

I think something akin to GDPR is necessary and good, but GDPR as written probably isn't it. I look forward to seeing how it works out in practice, and how it develops/is replaced, and in the meantime feel bad for the developers and customers that suffer through the unintended consequences and misfeatures of it.

After the law gets clarified some, I think you're right that it won't be bad for small players. But I wouldn't want to be one of the test cases.

[Tomte]

> That's an optimistic view of dealing with government

Calling the data protection agencies "government" may be correct in some very legalistic sense, but is utterly wrong under any colloquial meaning of the word.

[Semiapies]

Perhaps in Europe, but "government" has meant "the state" in the US for most of two centuries.

[barry-cotter]

If they’re set up pursuant to legislation and paid for by taxes they’re the government.