People get used to accepting the stupid cookie law and it becomes a habit, and in a couple of years the law lost it's meaning (people blindly accept cookie law) and no-one cares about "the great privacy laws of the EU".
This is probably how GDPR will end up, no sane person would have the time to read all the privacy notices and the crappy opt-ins to just order food as fast as possible.
Hey I'm starving I need that food ordered now, here's my location so you can deliver food here, I don't give a rat's ass about your privacy statement and clickady clack are there any more opt-ins to check before I can finally order my food?
My feeling is it is going to end up like the cookie law, but who knows at this stage.
1: ignore GDPR, you'll probably fly under. And if you dont, fine are scaled for business and people affected, as well as privacy infraction. Encrypt your backups, encrypt PII if you can do it effortlessly, and you're good. If you are not using emails except for checking double inscription, encrypt them too, the entropy is low BUT this is better than nothing .
2: If you have some time and money to spend to try to improve your services: self-report. A public agent will point you the weakness of your data processing.
If you have a lawful basis for collecting the information, you're only passing it along to others as necessary to provide your service to your customers, the customers have clearly consented, and you employ reasonable protection of that data... it's extremely unlikely that you're in violation.
And if you were, they'd come to you first with a warning (at least based on past behavior). They're not going to seize assets unless you seriously provoke them.
The entire point is, NO you can't just ignore GDPR. Your lack of action toward compliance is negligent.
Anyone not up to shady activity can afford to wait for the case law and best practices to settle before doing anything.
I don't comply with laws from many other jurisdictions either. Should I start applying censorship laws for China and Saudi Arabia too? Why should the EU be special?