This is yet another example of Cloudflare centralizing the web. I’m tired of this. Sure the only previously viable solution was ReCAPTCHA from Google. But it’s Google. I depend on them for search. And, sure, their business model depends on them being able to track me online. But I know them. And it’s hard for me to live without them. So I’m ok with depending on them, but I worry about further centralization of the Internet if there’s an alternative. At the end of the day, I like the Internet how it is and how I’ve gotten used to it. Facebook is clearly evil, but I still check them from time to time to keep up with my friends, but a lot less than I used to. I, of course, need to use Google so even though their business is inherently about tracking me, what’s the alternative. But Cloudflare, they’re new. They disrupt what I’m used to. They add another player to the mix. So how dare they centralize the Internet?? This is total BS. I’ll stick with ReCAPTCHA.
Is anyone else worried about how Cloudflare keeps putting out great solutions day after day? They're getting too big because people are too satisfied with them. That's a bad thing, because one day in the future they might take away or change these offerings.
We need shittier solutions. That way we never feel the pain of once having a good solution to a problem and then losing it.
great solutions is maybe an overstatement. If you build a bridge that puts everyone else out of business, and later discriminate on what traffic is allowed on the bridge, and after that you put an expensive toll booth on that bridge, that's a problem for everyone else if no one else can compete. At some point, you are doing society a disservice. At some point, great solutions become meager solutions by merit of a monopoly's ownership.
The solution is to make the internet itself resilient to this mode of attack. Not to create a single company big enough to gatekeep and spy on the whole network and to just trust them to act virtuously forever.
How did anyone cross the river before the bridge was built? If the bridge falls into disrepair or they start charging people an arm and a leg to use it, what stops someone else from coming along and building a better bridge? If Bridgeflare abuses their market position to prevent anyone else from building bridges then that could be rectified with government intervention, as in any other industry. I just don't get why there is so much FUD when they haven't, as far as I've seen, done anything to warrant it.
Cloudflare is a cancer and a lot of people are expressing that same sentiment. I think maybe only non-technical people are satisfied with them because they don't have a deeper understanding of what's happening.
Ok so the reason this painfully predictable reaction every time Cloudflare is on HN is because HNers have such a deep understanding of "what's happening." Got it.
Sir, you are probable the best CEO of this universe.... On alternative reality you company has a Search Engine (count with me to help with that) and doesn't need any advertise to keep that running, also has "don't be evil" as code of conduct and actually apply that....
But yes, no one is perfect, but at end of the day i really prefer your business model that does not need break users privacy.
On the one hand, I did post a reactionary hot take yesterday in response to the "pardon me, Cisco" ad that you posted [1]. I'm sorry for that; I should have kept that immediate reaction to myself. Still, I'm apprehensive about increasing the power of one of a handful of big players by routing my company's web traffic through Cloudflare, let alone running applications themselves on the Cloudflare platform, though Workers is certainly interesting technology. And I'm certainly not going to route all of my Internet traffic through Warp, or even use 1.1.1.1 for DNS.
But in the specific case of Turnstile, it is clearly now the least bad option. So I will be happy to use it when something like a CAPTCHA is needed.
If Google or Facebook offered Cloudflare $100B they’d probably have to take it. Add a quick TOS change and we are s-o-l. Hello gigantic super revenue earning centralized ad network (!$!$!).
In all seriousness, I don’t see Cloudflare centralizing the web. I see them decentralizing it by empowering smaller folks with easier tools for scale.
It’s a stretch of argument / not perfect —- but I am glad the competition exists. It makes sense for Cloudflare to be big and privacy focused when competing in the big net real estate space of the modern web.
Decentralising where compute is running but centralising a lot in terms of technologies and actors. While the first is about efficiency, the later is about freedom and resiliency.
