This is a fascinating perspective on the impact of GDPR on innovation. The short version: It’s a real blocker! Unsurprisingly, placing restrictions on data management reduces people’s ability to innovate.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w30028
Using data on 4.1 million apps at the Google Play Store from 2016 to 2019, we document that GDPR induced the exit of about a third of available apps; and in the quarters following implementation, entry of new apps fell by half. We estimate a structural model of demand and entry in the app market. Comparing long-run equilibria with and without GDPR, we find that GDPR reduces consumer surplus and aggregate app usage by about a third. Whatever the privacy benefits of GDPR, they come at substantial costs in foregone innovation.