While GDPR is far from perfect those fines made a huge difference. Hefty fines do scare companies.
PII data identifying, documenting it, and periodic review's of that is becoming standard procedure.
I remember when GDPR was announced, where for most projects, there was not anyone who could tell you for any given project, what all data is being collected and stored where.
So GDPR did have positive* effect at least with the part of the market I am familiar with.
* As in positive for people privacy