I couldn't care less in the adtech industry collapsed overnight, even if that meant I lose my job, but what's happening with Google and Facebook trying to push for privacy regulations is effectively raising the bar for competition and new comers.

A lot of advertisers didn't care when Safari etc. did it, such is the scale Chrome has - they just stopped targeting users not using Chrome. Now it's affecting everyone there's an outcry

"affecting" isn't the word I'd use there.

"protecting" would be better

100% agreed!

Sort of. The investigation is because there may well be a competition issue here, where Google is leveraging its dominant position in browser to the benefit of its ad business, removing the ability for its competitors to compete.

Google identifies users using Chrome via other means than cookies (Google Signal etc) in a way that no other competitor can or is able to access, and therefore is now pushing to remove the ability for anyone else to do it who doesn't control the browser.

Guarantee you if Google was forced to stop sharing data from its browser business to its ad business, it would not be pushing to remove cookies.

Edit: One final note is that it's a shame because there really is an opportunity to create a new alternative to cookies, better suited to the risks posed by modern tracking methods. But Google leading the charge to dictate how you can be tracked should be a huge red flag for you.