So it’s a “victory” that people in the US are unable to decide for themselves if they want to eat at Salmonella Kitchen Co?

Who made you the arbiter of what’s good for people?

Regulation "deciding" which businesses or services exist or not has existed for eons. It’s why we require doctors to be accredited, or restaurants to pass food and safety checks. Sometimes the balance of power is way out of the hands of consumers and the "free market" needs a bit of a nudge to act in the public’s best interest.

Salmonella Kitchen is a ridiculous example. Take something that is actually controversial, like raw milk.

If people want to drink raw milk, let them.

Allowing a company to offer a service for free in exchange for a user's data is very far away from allowing unaccredited doctors practice medicine.

GDPR is more like blocking people from braiding hair without a cosmotology license.

Companies can still do that - they just need to be honest and transparent with their users.

I didn't write the GDPR. The people of the EU democratically elected a government that did. They made that government arbiter over what's good for them.

However, am I not permitted to agree with them?

If Unroll was willing to explain their business model to users and let the users make an informed decision, then yes, the users could decide for themselves. Unroll decided that not enough people would willingly sign up knowing the consequences and that it wasn't worth it.

Unroll.Me decided that if it explicitly told people what it was doing, it would be out of business anyway. I think that shows that people in the EU did decide for themselves once the information asymmetry was resolved, and decided no.