Which gives ample room for a European competitior that does adhere to GDPR to clean up the EU market. We live in a very globalised world and the EU knows the leverage it has -- just as the US knows it's soft power extends well beyond her borders.
> Which gives ample room for a European competitior that does adhere to GDPR to clean up the EU market
Agreed. My point was with respect to an American start-up—compliance with GDPR is of lower priority than scaling. The priority, for both, should be scaling.
Advantage goes to the American start-up, however, in launching from a single market. But one might counter-argue that consumers in e.g. China will prefer to do business with European start-ups over American ones due to GDPR. (No evidence for that. But it’s a valid hypothesis.)