Perhaps it costs money to do so, and the company does not have enough working capital + lines of credit to make the payments necessary?

I feel like your statement here is basically "you are a business, therefore it is impossible for you to run out of money", which -- superficially -- seems very naive.

Obviously it might cost money (or time, which might mean money). Argument is still the same, it's not out of the ordinary to comply with regulations and laws.

It seems more like a cultural difference, whereby some one-man shops from US find privacy not important.

No there's no cultural difference (or perhaps there is, but it's not on display here). It's not out of the ordinary to comply with regulations and laws -- businesses often change to do so. However, it's also not out of the ordinary for businesses to go out of business due to legal situations. Both are signs of a functioning regulatory environment.

At that level it doesn't have to cost anything other than your time. And if it's not a business it is a hobby and those cost time (and usually also money).

The GDPR is not going to cause any but the weakest businesses to close shop, in fact if the GDPR causes a business to close (which I highly doubt other than people voluntarily throwing in the towel because they can't be bothered) then I am not sure if I'm going to shed tears over that because it likely means that that business was so weak already that other things besides GDPR compliance were suffering as well (such as security).

The comment I responded to cited environmental regulation. These are oftentimes costly to implement. All regulation costs money to implement. Even if each regulation by itself is cheap, these things add up -- it's death by a thousand cuts.

> These are oftentimes costly to implement.

Yes, but then again: if you don't implement them society as a whole will end up holding the bag. Polluter pays is a very good principle.

> All regulation costs money to implement.

Yes. But that's called the cost of doing business. And most software based businesses have insane margins anyway because of their ability to scale.

> Even if each regulation by itself is cheap, these things add up -- it's death by a thousand cuts.

That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that it levels the playing field between those that ride roughshot over their users rights and those that try to be nice.

I'm not sure what it is you are arguing about. I am in 100% agreement that regulation is necessary for a functioning society. However, the natural result of introducing new regulation is that some businesses will choose to leave the market. This is the cost of doing business. If a society can bear the loss of the business from the market, then things are good. That's about all there is to it.

> Another way of looking at it is that it levels the playing field between those that ride roughshot over their users rights and those that try to be nice.

Neither of those viewpoints are in opposition. You can both believe that more regulation kills some businesses through a 'death by a thousand cuts' and that these regulations level the playing field.

I'm sure such businesses exist. But this isn't one of them, the article writer is leaving his EU users for reasons all his own, as in: he made them up.

People are allowed to make up their own opinions, even ones not based in fact, and take actions on things they own regarding them. That is a fundamental human right, last time I checked.

As is calling them out for it (e.g. if they are not based in fact), which is all jacquesm does. That's also a "fundamental human right"

Please don't misinterpret my comments as telling jacquesm to keep quiet. It's a fundamental right to make a fool of yourself. Please continue!