Lots of companies are ready for GDPR, i.e. the ones that handle user information responsibly in the first place, and aren't opaque data hoarders as a central part of their business model.

I'm personally not a fan of the "lets collect it because we can" mentality.

"Data is the new oil" is a great analogy because not only is it valuable, the industry of data gathering is booming with little to no care about the side effects or long term consequences.

Had the right to privacy been enshrined in protective laws much earlier, requiring explicit consent to profile peoples behavior as it pertains to technology, things would obviously be a lot different. Obstacles often represent opportunities for improvement. Hypothesizing:

1. Alternatives to traditional advertising as a method for creating markets for products and services would have a better chance of taking off. A world where we have a relationship with the source of product/service introductions, where we can discriminate and depend on them to discriminate, could prevent a lot of manipulative, misleading and damaging crap from reaching people, and ensure demand goes to the highest quality products/services.

2. The difficulty of gathering would drive the value of peoples personal information higher, likely leading to better protection i.e. more careful handling, fewer data breaches and leaks.

3. A lot of "wasted effort" gathering and storing information as part of this data frenzy that ultimately doesn't provide value to anyone, despite all the moving money, could have been avoided.