Government regulations always have trade offs and unintended consequences. That doesn’t mean we should not have any but it does mean we should be very careful about and reluctant to make them.
One example is fuel efficiency standards. The U.S. government made stricter rules about how efficient vehicles have to be but set the rules based on how large a car is.
Bigger vehicle types are less efficient so makes sense, right? Well that has led to ever larger trucks and SUVs in the U.S. since automakers can get away with being less efficient (which is hard). Bigger vehicles caused an increase in pedestrian deaths.
Overall cars are definitely more efficient, but the growth in truck/SUV size (not to mention dead pedestrians!) was never intended.
We should have only those regulations absolutely necessary for basic public safety and no more as it invites second and third order effects. Not to mention stifling innovation as there is a reason the tech industry isn’t led by the highly regulated EU but instead the far less regulated U.S.
Privacy by default sounds great but it has two very bad side effects. The first is that companies need to make money. There would be no smart phones, laptops, email, or cloud services if they were not profitable. Privacy advocates might hate targeted advertising but without much of the internet can’t exist. Servers and programmers are expensive!
Eliminating, by law, the targeted advertising business model will end the tech sector as we know it. No streaming service, email, calendar app, etc will be available without steep subscription fees. With less money available for R&D, they will likely also have fewer features or the ‘good stuff’ will only be for people who can pay top dollar.
The second and even more dire consequence of a legally mandated privacy by default is who defines “private”? What arbitrary level of privacy counts as enough? Is it a government regulator who decides? A politician? The best paid lobbyist?
I support public investment in technology development and education (including about privacy!). But heavy handed attempts at controlling what is allowed in the tech market is not just anti-freedom, it’s likely to halt technological progress.
Edit: Just to be clear, privacy can be profitable too. But it’s a very different model and most people aren’t willing to pay up. Proton, Tuta, Mull, etc need people to pay subscriptions to operate. As a privacy conscience person I happily pay for privacy products. But that’s a deliberate choice I make that most people honestly won’t care enough to do.