The article mentioned that ad revenue is declining in Europe so maybe that 10% could become 9% very soon and so on. Maybe slowly it would make sense for companies to not care about Europe anymore and Europe with its regulation heavy approach may not even care. I do believe that Europe needs to rethink its approach before it goes into terminal decline.
I'm not sure why you think the alternative to shitty US companies is "terminal decline". Europe is more than capable of coming up with its own tech companies, and the prospect of trashfires like Facebook being driven out and replaced with more responsibly managed alternatives is firmly in the "feature" column.
How is Zuckerberg allowed to own any social media company after Cambridge Analytica? (not rhetorical)
Does Facebook provide a lot of value? I would argue it does provide some value, but doesn't add much above things like WhatsApp which are relatively primitive by themselves.
Now, the real question here is why they can't just do the processing in the EU, given that they have a bunch of data centres in Ireland, Sweden and maybe elsewhere.
If not then removing it will probably make people in Europe more productive.
I'd even go so far as to assert that EU would even subsidize such an endeavor, as it would be easier (and cheaper) to start over with human-preserving regulatory standards in place than to keep playing legal cat and mouse with companies like Facebook and Instagram.
Reminds me of a book called "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman. If ever there was a time to regain control over social media and politics for the sake of ensuring a humanity, it's now.
The reason people cheer news like this is because similar to tobacco companies, Facebook has entirely lost any credibility for existing. It would be unnatural to do anything but help expedite its demise.
My only complaint is Europeans didn't go far enough.
Ad tech companies might have a hard time in Europe, but that’s kind of the point. “Regulation” is too broad of a term, what matters are the specifics. In some instances there will be companies/industries that benefit and on others, some with face challenges.