> data takeout APIs

the data will be useless other than as a source of information. If you have data for an online vector editor, the vector data can be legally taken out via a common format (such as json), but there'll be no importers for this shape of data.

Any business can easily construe a common machine readable format that's also completely custom, and unimportable anywhere else, to satisfy the letter of the law.

That is a rather cynical take. More pragmatically, while it may be true that companies don't immediately jump at the opportunity to export in a common format (or there may be too many standards to export as), there is suddenly a market for data adapters if the companies do not import from their competitors, and a missing feature on a product sheet in any case.

If it's any sort of bigger service, competing services will implement their special format.

If they frequently change this format to break those implementations or clearly make it much more complex than it needs to be, that can also have legal repercussions.

Mandatory, yes, but the GDPR does not say it should be done for free. I offer data exports for all my services, so I'm compliant with the GDPR, but you will have to pay me for my time

Careful, there, it does say that in Article 12, (5):

"Information provided under Articles 13 and 14 and any communication and any actions taken under Articles 15 to 22 and 34 shall be provided free of charge".

(Article 15 is the Right of access by the data subject.)

You can only charge for subsequent copies or when "requests from a data subject are manifestly unfounded or excessive".

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See also the ICO FAQ on the subject: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-da...

This is not the case. (Article 12 (5)) https://gdpr-info.eu/art-12-gdpr/