As I've commented below it's disingenuous to say that GDPR applies equally to all companies when it was conceived with US tech companies in mind and is designed to alter their business models.

1) Some of the ideas in there are welcome.

2) When you put roadblocks in front of every data point it's difficult to develop a half decent pattern matching system. A consent prompt upon joining ought to suffice.

> technology companies are only suffering because in the past they have collected personal data indiscriminately on the basis that it might be useful some day

Perhaps, but the "might be useful someday" part is a route for many an innovation that I want to preserve.