Thoughts on Cloudflare • Hacker News Board

Re: Thoughts on Cloudflare

#81

Post by ranger_danger » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

nromiun wrote: post #49

I actually looked at all the alternatives listed by the author. Here is the problem: none of them are competitive with Cloudflare. With Cloudflare you don't even need to provide a credit card, just setup with your website and it is "free" for lifetime. They might pressure you to switch to paid plans if you start getting PBs of traffic, but until that point they will deliver your content for free. It is a huge advanta…

It's a win for both sides... you get free protection/proxy service, and they get to MITM all your traffic.

Re: Thoughts on Cloudflare

#82

Post by ranger_danger » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 5:00 PM UTC

doublerabbit wrote: post #75

jockm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Help me understand your point better. How do you want the services to work? Is there some standard you are advocating for, or for them to mimic existing services, or what?

By not harshly penalizing those who legitimately use VPN's, proxies? I'm using FreeBSD - This is on the hit list I'm using Waterfox - This is on the hit list I'm using my colocated server for a VPN from a reputable provider - This is on the hit list I eliminate the last two and suffer with my ADSL. My ADSL isn't a standard domestic provider so I'm hit with that too for using an alternative provider. I am still being…

This is exactly my experience as well... I guess we are still technically such a tiny minority that it doesn't make business sense to try to support us.

Re: Thoughts on Cloudflare

#83

Post by jasonvorhe » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 7:12 PM UTC

Avamander wrote: post #80

jasonvorhe wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which countries do you have to report someone for any of that? Genuinely curious. Can't think of a single country where any of these criteria would be a reportable offense.

I can certainly think of a few where some of these things are illegal or forbidden enough to result in death if someone found out.

So, what are some of them?

Re: Thoughts on Cloudflare

#84

Post by Avamander » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 10:02 PM UTC

jasonvorhe wrote: post #83

Avamander wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can certainly think of a few where some of these things are illegal or forbidden enough to result in death if someone found out.

So, what are some of them?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminalization_of_homosexuali...

Re: Thoughts on Cloudflare

#85

Post by figassis » Mon, Sep 29, 2025, 10:34 PM UTC

QuantumNoodle wrote: post #3

Author did a surprisingly good job hanging on to all the receipts to support his claim "cloudflare bad." But his alternatives are all CDN providers - which is not even the side of the business that makes cloudflare unique and makes them money. The piece, thorough as it may be, does not offer alternatives to products that cover the exciting parts of their business and I was looking forward to seeing what those were -…

I think it's not just about proving a claim. The same argument that in a democracy, you should build checks and balances to avoid sleepwalking into a dictatorship, is valid for companies, especially internet companies. Look at Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and friends. Cloudflare plays nice because it wants to frictionlessly slide into a position where it can extract rent. Today, they are powerful but are not there yet. They're easy to migrate out of because their offerings, amazing as they are, are not irreplaceable so people cannot yet be made hostages. Mostly what happens is your customers feel like CF is holding you for ransom without you knowing it.

When they start charging per packet and making you money, you will become as dependent on them as Apple developers are on Apple, and you'll find out how nice they are.

I have the same fear of tailscale. They are so amazing I just want to move every piece of my infra to them, business and personal, my family's devices, everything. But over time I've gained this instinctive distrust for low friction from startups, especially when the effect (intended or not) is you forgetting how to manage your own tech.

Re: Thoughts on Cloudflare

#86

Post by nromiun » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 5:50 AM UTC

ranger_danger wrote: post #81

nromiun wrote: post #49

I actually looked at all the alternatives listed by the author. Here is the problem: none of them are competitive with Cloudflare. With Cloudflare you don't even need to provide a credit card, just setup with your website and it is "free" for lifetime. They might pressure you to switch to paid plans if you start getting PBs of traffic, but until that point they will deliver your content for free. It is a huge advanta…

It's a win for both sides... you get free protection/proxy service, and they get to MITM all your traffic.

That's like saying your cloud providers are stealing and looking at all your code. Technically you might be right but it is still somewhat disingenuous.

Not to mention all the alternatives are doing MITM anyway. So why single out Cloudflare?

Re: Thoughts on Cloudflare

#87

Post by ranger_danger » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 5:43 PM UTC

nromiun wrote: post #86

ranger_danger wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a win for both sides... you get free protection/proxy service, and they get to MITM all your traffic.

That's like saying your cloud providers are stealing and looking at all your code. Technically you might be right but it is still somewhat disingenuous. Not to mention all the alternatives are doing MITM anyway. So why single out Cloudflare?

> it is still somewhat disingenuous.

Depends on your perspective IMO... if I either think there is reason to believe they are spying on people for nefarious purposes, or if I do not want them to allow the government to spy on me without a warrant, I'd prefer they not have that ability to begin with, regardless of whether it's code sitting on the device or the web traffic that transits through them.

> So why single out Cloudflare?

Because I believe they have a much larger influence and percentage of traffic than all the alternatives combined, but you're right, they all have the same weakness and I would like a solution to it.

Re: Thoughts on Cloudflare

#88

Post by QuantumNoodle » Fri, Oct 03, 2025, 3:06 AM UTC

figassis wrote: post #85

QuantumNoodle wrote: post #3

Author did a surprisingly good job hanging on to all the receipts to support his claim "cloudflare bad." But his alternatives are all CDN providers - which is not even the side of the business that makes cloudflare unique and makes them money. The piece, thorough as it may be, does not offer alternatives to products that cover the exciting parts of their business and I was looking forward to seeing what those were -…

I think it's not just about proving a claim. The same argument that in a democracy, you should build checks and balances to avoid sleepwalking into a dictatorship, is valid for companies, especially internet companies. Look at Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and friends. Cloudflare plays nice because it wants to frictionlessly slide into a position where it can extract rent. Today, they are powerful but are not th…

All good points.

> ... build checks and balances to avoid sleepwalking into a dictatorship.

This resonates well with me. I don't personally know the checks and balances that need to exist so that Cloudflare, or any big influential company, refrains from becoming evil. I find CF relying on open protocols for interoperability with vendors a very positive sign. I don't ever see them (or any company) backtracking of supporting some open standard once they already have support for it. I'm not aware of them having "custom" solutions that also don't have a spec for them. For example, they are absolutely best suited for the pay-per-[ai]crawl business model and if they wanted they could have easily taken advantage of their position. Instead they are relying on open standards and contributing to them. Paint me naive but this gives me a good deal of confidence of the short and medium term.

But I confess that I don't follow the company/market closely enough to know if that is enough or more is needed. More check and balances always seems good but I have no creativity in this regard. Perhaps that was one of my criticisms with the author's post - to collect all the bad press and identify the shortcomings but to stop short of digesting all those findings into a meaningful resolution.