The US law firms and compliance consultants were scaremongering a lot around these fines (after all, they got paid for consulting there and making sure this is as scary as possible).

To be fair, in the US regulations seem to be thought of as something enforced against smaller companies while larger companies can afford expensive lawyers to sidestep them. The difference is that EU privacy law can't easily be sidestepped because it specifically targets these large companies.

OTOH this might just be a case of "temporarily inconvenienced billionaire" logic or the same fear mongering as "if we raise minimum wage you won't be able to afford rent".

I had no expectations tbh. Was a pleasant surprise.