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I believe the parent was referring to things like GDPR which may have the unintended consequence of more entrenching the large incumbents because of the cost and time associated with compliance.

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The cost of compliance with GDPR is only high if you want to straddle the line of what is or isn’t acceptable behavior regarding saving user data and monetizing said data. Lawyers are expensive, and the more crooked you are, the more expensive they get. If, on the other hand, you don’t want to save any data on your users more than you obviously need (in order to do what your users explicitly ask for), then the cost is zero – you are already compliant.

This is just wrong. The cost of DSARs to most businesses who are subject to GDPR fines is massive.

Then store less customer data. You're complaining that being data leech is expensive because of the GDPR. That's the point.

Europeans don't want you to keep that much data on them. If your business model requires that, it is not one we want to encourage.

You can send them the json for their user page and a copy of your user data policies. This process can easily be automated with an url. This doesn't cost more to do than any other form of customer support.

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