They shared, and processed, much more than post data.

That does make a difference, but probably not enough of one. The GDPR defines sensitive data: Religious beliefs, trade union membership, sexual orientation, and more. The sensitive data is in the posts. That other data was probably not a big deal.

The counterargument was that the processing wasn't strictly necessary for the contract. It is not strictly necessary either to store lemmy posts on other servers outside the reach of the GDPR.

Scraping is perfectly legal in the EU. It’s like making a copy of a newspaper: You can get in trouble for distributing that copy, but not for making it for your own archival or whatever purposes.

No. You misunderstand. Scraping, as such, is legal in the abstract. But where personal data is concerned, the GDPR applies. How and for what purposes the GDPR allows scraping is contested, to put it mildly.

You're probably allowed to make copies of a newspaper for your private, non-professional, non-business purposes throughout Europe, but the states have somewhat different laws for that sort of thing. It's not necessarily legal under all circumstances in all member states.

It’s you who introduces the term “property”, there.

I said similar to intellectual property. Property is something that may not be used or taken without consent. When someone else has it, the owner can demand to know about its whereabouts or condition, or take it back. That seems quite similar to the requirements of the GDPR. Neither honor nor bodily integrity are like that. The main difference to property is that you cannot irrevocably transfer it to someone else.

Continental European copyright is also like that. Maybe the PR work of the copyright industry laid the groundwork for the GDPR. Note how people talk: Tracking cookies are "stealing your data". It's not spying on you - not invading your privacy - it's an act of theft; a property crime.

Maybe you think the dissimilarities weigh more heavily. Even so, it is still neolib or libertarian to me. That's the point of the food analogy.

You're right that they want it to be even more property like. I expect eventually we'll get some data trustee or PIMS scheme or something along those lines. Some brain-dead ordoliberal fever dream born out of dogma rather than reason. That seems to be the track we're on. The left is dead.