The EU fines are not enough to get the US tech companies to change, or even leave completely. But they are enough to continually fund the EU regulatory bureaucracy itself. So this arm of the government really only exists to preserve itself.

I would be interested to see how many EU government jobs the US tech fines are supporting. Maybe Meta or Google is indirectly the largest employer in Brussels?

Another way to read this is the tech companies are stupidly bankrolling the EU by not complying with the laws of the lands (EU states voluntarily enact their own implementations of EU directions in return for a slice). That’s far too good a cash cow to pass up. Keep it coming.