As a general purpose USB (which not only works great for daily use as a thumb drive but also works with no issues as Linux Live or persistent USB) I can recommend the Sandisk Ultra line. I had them everywhere from 16GB to 128GB. They never let me down. The housing might look like it's made from flimsy plastic but it's surprising sturdy.
A second drive I'm currently preparing for use as a persistent Linux drive is the Samsung portable SSD T7. It's nice and sturdy and the USB C to USB C interface allows me to easily run it on my Laptop without using up any of my precious USB A ports.
I'm worried too but I doubt countries who voted against it will just lie down and turn over. I'm sure local courts will fight this on the grounds of national privacy laws. And just because the EU wishes this to be a thing doesn't mean it's happening too. The technological groundwork needs to be developed for this and I can imagine that some service will drag their feet at implementing that. At least that's my unicorn utopia with rainbows I currently live in to bear this reality ðŸ«