[imiric]

When fines are a small percentage of the company's revenue, they do nothing to stop them from breaking the law. So they are in fact just the cost of doing business.

E.g. Meta has been fined billions many times, yet they keep reoffending. It's basically become a revenue stream for governments.

[mmooss]

> Meta has been fined billions many times, yet they keep reoffending

They are a large company who do many things, some of which will violate the rules. Do they do it more, less, or the same as they would if there weren't fines?

[imiric]

That's a red herring question that's impossible to answer.

The point is not that Meta and other companies break laws. It's that they keep breaking the same ones related to privacy. They do this because their business model depends on exploiting their users' data. Privacy laws to them are a nuisance that directly impact their revenue, so if they calculate that the revenue from their activity is greater than the fines, then it's just the cost of doing business. If, OTOH, it turns out that the amount of resources they would need to expend on fines or to comply with the laws are greater than the possible revenue, i.e. the juice is not worth the squeeze, then they simply bail out and stop doing business in that jurisdiction. But so far, even billion-dollar fines are clearly lower than their revenues.

It's a simple numbers game, so I'm not sure what your argument is.

[mmooss]

> That's a red herring question that's impossible to answer.

It's not a red herring, it's the only question that matters. It's not impossible to answer, but it's just difficult.

The rest of your argument is merely restating your argument as fact, with no basis.