IIRC GDPR is considered regressive, in the same sense that a flat corporate tax is regressive: it imposes a higher burden on small bootstrapped companies than it does on larger companies (in this case, because of the legal fees required to get audited for compliance, and the extra engineering work that's not going toward product.) Very small companies can get priced out of the market entirely, and so never live to become large companies. Insofar as those companies were potential innovators, GDPR can be said to be stifling that innovation.
> As long as the rules are the same for all competition in a market will still happen.
Sure, but in continental law the rules aren't the same for everyone. The laws are defined such that technical breaches are almost impossible to avoid. They empower a regulator with capricious and arbitrary power to sanction organisations - or not - with no requirement for consistency or recourse.
The answer to any technical question along the lines of "Is X illegal under the GDPR?" is "Nobody knows - we'll find out once the regulator fines someone."
Based on what are you saying this? As long as the rules are the same for all competition in a market will still happen.
I also hope that the GDPR will move the focus of innovation away from sucking up more and more data to do better advertising to other areas.