In other words - is this an "American corporate greed" sort of tragedy, or is this standard result of such a lawsuit in all major countries?
By tragedy, I mean over 90% of the proceeds of the lawsuit going to lawyers rather than individuals affected in the data breach.
the legal theory is that
1) punishing the bad actor is more important than restitution. it's more important that Zappos is punished to discourage bad behavior from Zappos or anyone else, less important how exactly the punishment money is split up
2) since lawyers can get paid out of the settlement, it incentivizes independent lawyers to go after bad companies wherever they may be rather than needing regulators. so you don't need to maintain and hire a bunch of regulators and their legal teams, which will often be too many or too few.
other countries may prefer things the other way around and often do. it's easy to think of pros and cons either way.
1) not involve a civil suit whatsoever - instead of filing a class action claim resulting in a settlement or penalty assigned by a court, the people would complain to the relevant regulator, who'd investigate, impose fines and mandate changes in company processes.
2) in a scenario like this - where none of the complaintants assert any specific direct loss but simply generic increased future risk - there would be no payments to the affected individuals at all, any fines would go to the government; the main goal will be to enforce future compliance with the rules, and punish past incompliance with fines to deter other violators. Individuals can demand and get compensation that will cover specific actual damages that can be demonstrated, but no more, and nothing unless/until any consequences materialize. The "You wronged me, I'll sue you for $$$$ despite not being actually $$$$ out of pocket right now" style of civil claims (that seems to be common in USA, at least in mass media) is rare, and when it happens, it's usually unsuccessful.
When a suit starts in 2012 and ends in 2019, the human capital invested is simply enormous.