Even if you can't see it with your own eyes then you can be sure that thousands of companies (including the one I work for) are collecting a lot less data than

Even if you can't see it with your own eyes then you can be sure that thousands of companies (including the one I work for) are collecting a lot less data than they normally would (after all, it's often impossible to know exactly what data is being collected, for how long, and how it will be stored). I'm sure you've also noticed some websites even blocked EU visitors until they had time to comply with the law, at least I saw a couple of stories and comments about it on HN. And if the companies didn't care/worry then why would they even bother with consenting overlays? A lot more people (and not just the tech folks) are also beginning to care about their privacy (not only because of GDPR but I do believe it has had one of the biggest influences, along with the Facebook scandals, China's growing dystopia, etc). A lot of people (such as myself) also stopped using evil services like imgur, and use every opportunity to encourage people to do the same and spread awareness. Although I had mostly stopped visiting imgur links a long time ago, I didn't really start to bash them and block them completely until I saw their insane GDPR overlay where they showed how they share data with hundreds of different companies and even forced users to visit their websites to opt out. Stopping people from using these websites/apps is a slow process, but just because you can't see drastic changes then it doesn't mean it isn't affecting them. Would you notice if Signal's userbase had grown by 20% as a result of people becoming aware of the importance of privacy due to GDPR, or if imgur/Facebook dropped by 15%? I wouldn't, but I did notice the likes of Google and Facebook facing multi-billion dollar fines. I've also noticed Facebook has been struggling a lot lately, and that Google has been facing a lot of backlash for their Dragonfly project.