Will that work if noncompliant company is offering its service for FREE* by funding everything selling data and you have to charge/use less valuable static ads? Just having a larger market doesn't automatically make you're product more successful, especially when that larger market needs more mundane localization efforts that the average startup probably won't invest in for a couple years GDPR or not

Plus, blatently ignoring regulation is cheaper in the short term, and if you successfully leverage that advantage into revenue than you can start throwing money at the problem once the regulators finally do get around to prosecuting you.

Worked for Uber.