> due to overly complex regulations such as GDPR, there are no EU-based alternatives to speak of

You're talking specifically about AWS competitors, right? I don't think it's related to GDPR. It's really that everybody uses AWS. Would you say that Canada doesn't have a competitor to AWS because of their regulations, too?

Regulations like the GDPR precisely try to give incentives for competitors. Which is hard to do because people/companies fight to use the US solutions and don't care about privacy, just convenience.

> Regulations like the GDPR precisely try to give incentives for competitors.

It failed miserably at that, too. Apart from Plausible there's hardly any business worth mentioning that used GDPR as a competitive advantage. GDPR for the most part has been a stimulus program for lawyers and government busybodies.

Maybe it failed, but that's the goal.

You can't take the GDPR, and conclude that regulations as an idea is bad.

> You can't take the GDPR, and conclude that regulations as an idea is bad.

Though I didn't make that claim, in fact I precisely think that more often than not that's indeed the case. Regulations often serve no other purpose than to create yet more red tape procedures and self-serving structures.

Right. So you agree with me when I asked to stop blaming regulations-as-an-idea for everything? It didn't sound like this.