That seems like a fairly naive interpretation of the likely outcomes. GDPR has made well groomed/well collected personal data more valuable not less. When som

That seems like a fairly naive interpretation of the likely outcomes. GDPR has made well groomed/well collected personal data more valuable not less. When something is valuable but expensive to generate or operate with, that doesn't kill industries it drives them to consolidation. If I were to take a stab at speculating what would happen it would go something like this. Facebook/Google just got a gift wrapped stick to beat both publishers and advertisers over the head with. The data they already collect is already very well groomed, they have tons of resources and savvy and they have enough explicit touch points with users that they can enable the GDPR requirements at the lowest costs and drive business to their platforms in droves, increasing network effects. Expect to see publishers requiring google/facebook logins to see content in the near future. Second, the big publishers, the ones with content that people really want to see (sports) will be able to get over the high bar of consent fairly easily. They'll be able to leverage that with their other content. Some savvy big publisher is going to figure out how to leverage that into a publisher network. Also, consolidation of the publishers will happen again decreasing the costs to handle this asset, while increasing network effects. There is room in that new world for some big adtech teams who are savvy enough and have resources enough to collect the data, simply because advertisers are unlikely to want to have to deal with further empowered Facebook/Google/Publisher networks, and at the end of the day advertisers are the ones funding this whole thing. But those adtech teams are going to get better at collecting data, not worse, in order to be viable. So I'd predict less fragmentation of your personal data. It will be in the hands of less people, but the people that do have it, will have more of it, will be more savvy about its use and value, and will be more powerful than they were before. So, again, I think you'll see the big guys get bigger and have more data about more people. I think small players and innovative upstarts will be hurt, both in the adtech space (which we may all feel fine losing out on) but also in the content generation space (which troubles me at least). Personally, I'm not sure where I land on this. Generally speaking, I think anything that gives google more insight into my life is a bad thing and I think GDPR is going to be a disaster when it comes to privacy around what those big companies have on me, but I can see it going the other way. Maybe all that happens is that people move to content based advertising networks and the listicle farms go away. If so it will be a win, but I wouldn't bet on that outcome. [disclosure] - I work in adtech, and am actively involved in GDPR efforts currently. - These are my thoughts/opinions not my employers.