The idea is that small publishers go out of business and further media consolidation occurs. Those remaining can force personalized ad compliance by virtue of their reputation and limited choices left.
This is by far the most likely result. Why run an ecommerce store when you can rely on Amazon or eBay to shoulder the costs and risk?
GDPR will cause further consolidation, and ironically the companies people are forced to use will have everyone opt-out of the GDPR law by spamming them constantly with "opt-in" links until they click the "stop spamming me" button and the situation is exactly the same as it was yesterday, but with less competition.
Unintended consequences indeed.
Hm? I don't see this happening. Under GDPR you have to offer the same service 'without detriment' if the user does not want personalized ads. Most people would pick this option as long as it is clear to do so. I don't think reputation makes much of a difference. As far as I can tell, they could become paid subscriptions more likely.