Necessity is the mother of invention. If the only way your business can survive is carte-blanche regulations around privacy and security, and you fall over the

Necessity is the mother of invention. If the only way your business can survive is carte-blanche regulations around privacy and security, and you fall over the instant that's threatened, one: maybe your business doesn't deserve to survive, and two: maybe you didn't build a very good business. Niche online forums and all the examples you list there survived (and indeed thrived) in the days before rampant data collection, I have no doubt they'd evolve and survive once again.