IMO the only good thing is it made people aware of what's happening with their data online. But then we are still tracked, the web experience is much worse, SMEs got another "screw you" from the regulator by increasing their operating costs to comply with this and big companies who were to blame for this in the first place found ways to bypass it because they have access to strong legal expertise.

I think the GDPR creates benefits in more areas than you may be aware of.

For example I used to work for a hosting provider. An admin noticed that one of the hosted customers had customer data exposed to the internet without a password. Due to the GDPR he was forced to contact the customer about it, or our company could be held responsible (since we knew about it).