It's incredible how much regulations the EU has to stifle the smallest of projects. No wonder they're so behind in the AI race
If you want "progress at any cost", particularly at the cost of human lives, you're right. We're behind in the ever so important AI race, and we're missing that privacy of people, health of people, happiness, and the future of humanity is entirely irrelevant unless it makes you money, today.
Probably only people who are interested in living in such a place, and those who care about that sort of stuff are maybe less likely to choose total annihilation and exploitation for profit, so you see less multi-billion dollar companies that have to promise they're not evil, I guess?
It's a different culture, that doesn't necessarily make it bad.
If a company can't deal with PII safely, they SHOULDN'T be a company in the first place. If you can't have a zoo without starving the animals and running them over every now and then, maybe it's fine that you can't start a zoo, even if countries exist where you could do that instead and be fine (as long as you hide the bodies).