231–240 of 578 posts
Great move. Will probably switch to it immediately from Sendgrid as soon as it goes GA. Sendgrid recently killed their free tier (100 emails per day) and their lowest plan is now $20/month for 50,000 emails. It's totally overkill for low traffic projects.
It's unfortunate that email hosting and email infrastructure can really be done only well by major players. The days of people running and maintaining their own are pretty much long gone. Fwiw, not a knock against CF. I like their products, mostly simple, fair pricing, etc. Just a bit unfortunate commentary on the state of email infra on the internet.
> The days of people running and maintaining their own are pretty much long gone This is very much a myth. There's a lot of FUD around how mail is "hard", but it's much less complicated than, say, running and maintaining a k8s cluster (professionally, I'm responsible for both at my org, so I can make this comparison with some authority). Honestly `apt install postfix dovecot` gets you 90% of the way there. Getting sp…
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To be honest, the internet was worse without Cloudflare, so as long as they provide a good service for their customers, I’m fine with it. This is one of those. Google is in a perfect position to compete but they don’t, so it’s not like Cloudflare is a monopoly or something. At least they’re not selling ads using your data.
I don't know what kind of internet you used but mine didn't randomly decide to block my access to a website because some quasi monopolist decided I wasn't allowed to use a certain website for intransparent reasons.
If it's the latter then it reflects the sad truth that we can't have nice things anymoret. I have lots of problems with the accessibility of that box, but either Cloudflare would be implementing it, somebody else would be implementing it, or a huge chunk of data would be unavailable to you anyway because of accidental DDoS attacks caused by irresponsibly deployed bots.
I think the biggest issues would come down to server-side search functionality though. For very basic services, and even most of common IMAP/JMAP, it could be pretty great. Working on an a major email platform is something I've really wanted to do for a while now. (cloudflare, call me)
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I don't know what kind of internet you used but mine didn't randomly decide to block my access to a website because some quasi monopolist decided I wasn't allowed to use a certain website for intransparent reasons.
Being blocked from a web site and having to hit a little box are two different things. Are you talking about the former or the latter? If it's the former ... that has literally never happened to me unless I'm on a VPN and even then it's rarely (if ever) CF that's doing the blocking. If it's the latter then it reflects the sad truth that we can't have nice things anymoret. I have lots of problems with the accessibilit…
Maybe for you.
But I don't let random unvetted websites run code on my computer. Checking that box requires it.
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The internet is worse for me with Cloudflare. I'm using a cellphone router for my internet. My guess is I don't get a dedicated IP and probably behind a NAT with other users. 85% of my request needs me to solve a cloudflare captcha. on bad days I have to do this easily 100+ times.
But what's the counterfactual? People use cloudflare because they want protection from ddos attacks and bots. If cloudflare didn't exist there would probably be similar measures.
Point being, it's a commercial subverting the Internet from inside, reshaping it to better serve the interests of commerce. It is indeed protection, but it's accomplished by reducing variance. 99% of legitimate commerce on the Internet follows the same patterns, use a small subset of possibilities offered by the technology - so why not just block the remaining 1% that doesn't fit and call it a day? It will stop most of the threats to running businesses on the Internet. The 1% of legitimate commerce that doesn't fit the pattern? It's not being ignored per se, just pressured to adapt and conform to the majority.
What is being ignored is that the Internet is not just a place of commerce, and non-commercial use cases, ideas such as empowering people to better their lives, are gradually becoming impossible, as fundamental Internet infrastructure becomes inhospitable for them.
Some of us still remember the Internet being more than just a virtual mall, and are unhappy about it gradually becoming one. And it's not like CloudFlare, et al. are hostile to non-commercial interests as a matter of principle - it's just out of scope for them.
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Hosting your own email means the subpoena (or warrant) is delivered to you . You get to respond to requests and your data cannot be handed over without your knowledge.
You will still be required to hand it over, or sit in jail while your confiscated, inventoried equipment is processed by forensics. If I want to be subpoena proof, I’d host the subject system outside the jurisdiction with an org having no connection or nexus in the adversary jurisdiction. Admittedly, this is up to your threat model. Do you want to know, but still be legally required to provide access? Or do you want…
but I do mind my data being drag-netted, or hoovered up by scummy big tech and then sold on
(whether that's for slop training, ads, anything really)
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CDNs always existed IMHO. The world before cloudflare was just much more hidden. In general I find their take at the typical cloud business from a network perspective mostly refreshing. However, I guess they have become the major player now and certainly try to optimize the world towards their business model. IMHO it needs other enterprises entering the competition. Maybe it could be new more software defined mobile…
Oh I remember a time before CDNs and a big part of your startup fundraise was to build out your own setup inside a data center.
Cloudflare at some point will basically compete with AWS as the entire infra platform for developers. They are slowly building tools one after another. I am really excited to follow how their Containers platform matures as it is still too early.
Yup and why their share price has rocketed. Nobody in the CDN industry is making money - a large player went bankrupt recently. You don't want to look at Fastlys financials and share price Cloud is where the money is.