5 ms·

> Distribute [your content] via methods you control. I'm being nitpicky but it feels off to me to call people out on owning their own platform but then use Clo

> Distribute [your content] via methods you control. I'm being nitpicky but it feels off to me to call people out on owning their own platform but then use Cloudflare's CDN instead of running their own. And if they did run their own CDN, they would probably have to use AWS or another worldwide cloud provider and not own the hardware. And if I were Richard Stallman I would probably come down on you for using proprietary chipsets in your hardware instead of totally open source hardware. And you can just keep going deeper and deeper with this train of thought. So what level of ownership is acceptable to this website's author? I feel like the right balance of "ownership" is super subjective. I love a lot of traits of the "old-school" web and am a huge believer in self-hosting as much as possible. But imo yelling at people while on your high horse doesn't encourage anyone.

rapind 4y ago
Just like security, you settle for the risk you can afford and are comfortable with. The cloud muddies your grasp of the risks though. A lot of these cloud offerings (like k8s) are incredibly complex, and therefore have a lot of attack vectors, and a lot of points of failure. We depend on layers built on layers, built on layers. You can't really eliminate all of these dependencies, but you can eliminate / reduce some of the highest risk ones (topmost layers).
- heywoodlh 4y ago
  > Just like security, you settle for the risk you can afford and are comfortable with Right, I totally agree. What I'm not a fan of is this site actively encouraging people to call out others for not owning their own content. If we are gonna compare to security, it would be like suggesting everyone should adhere to the same threat model -- which just isn't practical. > The cloud muddies your grasp of the risks though. Are you saying "you" generally or me specifically? Because I was just using a CDN built on AWS as an example of not being able to own all parts of your stack. It's mostly impossible for an individual and most companies to build a CDN on their own hardware as most entities don't have datacenters around the world.
  - rapind 4y ago
    > Are you saying "you" generally or me specifically? Generally, as in all of us.
    - heywoodlh 4y ago
      Ah, yeah. I see what you mean. I run a K8s cluster at home (I also work with AWS EKS) and in a lot of ways I see the upsides of what you gain with K8s. I also see why a ton of people won't ever need the complexity of K8s and I can see how the complexity/downsides would outweigh the benefits in the majority of situations.
neoromantique 4y ago
Having CF handle your CDN proxying is still much better than just using some all in one platform. At least you own your data and can migrate it if need be.
- heywoodlh 4y ago
  I absolutely agree -- I was just using that as an example of how subjective "owning your own platform" is. EDIT: I originally said "owning your own content" but "owning your own platform" is more in line with what I am talking about
  - tomjakubowski 4y ago
    I don't think the CDN qualifies as a "platform" because, I think almost by definition, a platform is something that's hard to move your application off of. It's relatively painless to switch your app's CDN provider compared to, say, moving it between AWS/DigitalOcean/Azure.
    - heywoodlh 4y ago
      I totally see what you mean and I agree with you. As I said in another comment I have no problems with Cloudflare or CDNs -- and like you said in another comment CDNs can actually make it cheaper and safer to self host your own application. > I don't think the CDN qualifies as a "platform" I think you are 100% correct and I agree with your point. But I think even your disagreement with my comment highlights the original point I was making: "ownership" of "your platform" and what those terms mean to you is super subjective based on your values, skillset, etc. Wouldn't you agree on that point? If so, doesn't it come off as condescending (like you felt about my original comment) to tell people what they should or should not do with their digital content creation? My whole point was that it bothered me that this site encourages people to call out others for creating content on a platform they have disagreement with -- who creates that standard of what is suitably "owned" or not?
- digitallyfree 4y ago
  Not just the data, but the infrastructure as well. A CDN lets me host on my own equipment rather than renting cloud compute - and I can change CDN providers anytime I like.
_carbyau_ 4y ago
Depends what your platform is but most of the examples given are about content. So I see it as own your content and don't licence it out or be unprepared to migrate hosting platforms as needed.
- heywoodlh 4y ago
  Good point about content and licensing. It is discouraging to understand that in most cases when people post content it isn't theirs anymore despite them taking the time to create it.
bragr 4y ago
Unless you are using Cloudflare's specialized security services, CDN is pretty interchangeable and easy to switch between. You can ever do dynamic DNS things to use multiple CDNs at the same time and shift different traffic segments onto different providers if you are into that sort of things, or tier one CDN behind another to act as a mid tier. I don't really understand why the decentralized internet folks harp on CDNs because they will be very required if they ever get their way since by definition, if everyone is running small to medium, highly distributed sites, then you aren't likely to have a point of presence near most users and that will be poor user experience. My guess is that most people have only heard of Akamai or Cloudflare so they automatically associate CDN with huge companies, but the reality is that the CDN space is highly competitive and decentralized. Just off the top of my head there's at least a dozen providers I would consider tier 1, several dozen I would classify as medium sized or targeted at niche audiences, and probably hundreds of small providers, not to mention just about every large telco operates their own CDN now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network#Notable_content_delivery_service_providers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network#Notab...
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  > I don't really understand why the decentralized internet folks harp on CDNs +1,000,000 here. CDNs are exactly a mechanism for distributing content around the world in order to serve users locally. It's exactly decentralization! And, as you point out, the industry harbors healthy competition.
  - SnowHill9902 4y ago
    Distributed physically but not from an ownership standpoint.
- heywoodlh 4y ago
  > I don't really understand why the decentralized internet folks harp on CDNs For sure, I was just using it as an example on how subjective "owning your platform" can be. I actually have zero problems with Cloudflare, CDNs, etc. If I did have a problem with it and you disagreed, wouldn't that still illustrate my point that "ownership" is subjective and opinionated?
webmaven 4y ago
> I'm being nitpicky but it feels off to me to call people out on owning their own platform but then use Cloudflare's CDN instead of running their own. Infrastructure isn't a platform, and vice versa. If Cloudflare started to make editorial decisions about which web traffic to "promote" to users, there would be hell to pay.
- heywoodlh 4y ago
  > Infrastructure isn't a platform, and vice versa. I gave this some thought and after a bit I disagree with this. Wasn't Parler an example of infrastructure being used to editorialize _against_ specific opinions and ideas?[1] As I understand it, they were kicked off of AWS and refused by multiple infrastructure providers for hosting content that was perceived as offensive and potentially dangerous. Is that not an example of infrastructure being part of the platform? *I want to make clear I do not use Parler at all and am in no way stating I am either for or against it -- I just think it's an interesting example. I would love to hear your perspective, though, on that. To clarify, though, my original point is that "owning" your "platform" is subject to your values and experience. Do you agree with that? I actually have zero problems with anyone using Cloudflare, CDNs, etc, I just think it feels self righteous to encourage people to call out others for not owning their own content (which the original website does). [1] https://time.com/5929888/amazon-parler-aws/ https://time.com/5929888/amazon-parler-aws/ EDIT: forgot to add the link :)
  - webmaven 4y ago
    > Wasn't Parler an example of infrastructure being used to editorialize _against_ specific opinions and ideas?[1] As I understand it, they were kicked off of AWS and refused by multiple infrastructure providers for hosting content that was perceived as offensive and potentially dangerous. Is that not an example of infrastructure being part of the platform? Sure. Businesses have always tried to have it both ways, and really like being necessary infrastructure while still having the option to refuse service. And, to be fair, AWS (and Cloudflare) aren't quite at the point where they are going to be publicly regulated utilities that no longer have the option of refusing to provide service (like an electricity or phone service provider). But they are getting closer to that every day, and eventually we'll stop talking about IaaS and start talking about IaaU (once most other providers give up the Tesla-vs-Edison fight and concede that AWS has defined the APIs that have become the defacto standards they need to copy). But even in a hosting-as-regulated-utility (or common-carrier, which is the relevant term from the transportation and communication industries) world, there are still exceptions and there are lots of things that in the name of public safety etc. you aren't allowed to do when using these services, and limits that are imposed. I don't really expect utility services like compute, storage, edge caching, content replication and distribution, etc. to be exceptions to that.
rd07 4y ago
I think hosting a website in a low powered computer like Raspberry Pi can be an alternative to really own our platform. Granted, it can't handle big traffic, but it is cheap enough to built and maintain yourself.
- heywoodlh 4y ago
  Totally agreed. And what you said is in-line with my original thought that "owning" your "platform" is super subjective and opinionated. Some people think that infrastructure is part of your platform and some don't!
- winternett 4y ago
  A light weight site run on a traditional web host is fine for most use cases early on in my opinion. The problem is so many people think of costly cloud hosting as the first move and burn up all their capital even before they reach 10k users. That is why the dot com era was more fruitful. People started in their basement, and service outages were not a big deal... Heck, service outages were often the thing that spurred more interest in products and also spurred users to invest so that products could scale.
spatley 4y ago
The day cloudflare starts filtering individual pieces of content, I would get out fast. FB, twitter, et. al. show me what they think will keep me looking at them for as long as possible. It is only coincidence that it is sometimes content I actually want. If I can get all my friends to just post by RSS I don’t need or want anything else those platforms do.
- heywoodlh 4y ago
  Sure, I agree. I actually have no problems with Cloudflare, CDNs, etc. I was just using the website's use of Cloudflare CDN as an example that "owning" your "platform" is subjective to everyone's personal experience and values. And I have a problem that the site encourages people to call out others who don't line up with their view of what owning the platform means to them.
- lmm 4y ago
  How are you defining "filtering individual pieces of content"? Cloudflare kicked off The Daily Stormer and acknowledged that they were doing so as their own choice for political reasons.
  - SnowHill9902 4y ago
    MITMing and filtering or blocking fragments of a request.
  - spatley 4y ago
    That is the very issue I consider. The Daily Stormer block was done to an entire business which is a different thing than prioritizing some posts over others from the same source. It is worth discussing cloudflare’s decision to block the Stormer. But that is different than Facebook’s optimization AI choosing to not show me posts from people I choose to follow. Both are potentially concerning and complex, but I consider them to be separate topics.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
But you don't actually need a CDN unless you're optimizing / min-maxing for speed; someone's leftover raspberry pi running in a broom closet halfway across the world can serve a website just as well as an AWS cluster can. Of course, if you get bigger you need to start making some concessions, but for a lot of people that's wishful thinking. I remember when I was 16, there were these guys that made really shitty voiceovers and edits for videos and put them online. They just had a computer running at home. It'd get hammered whenever they uploaded a new video, but it worked. They didn't rely on anyone else - hell, this was before youtube was a thing.

rapind 4y ago

Just like security, you settle for the risk you can afford and are comfortable with. The cloud muddies your grasp of the risks though. A lot of these cloud offerings (like k8s) are incredibly complex, and therefore have a lot of attack vectors, and a lot of points of failure. We depend on layers built on layers, built on layers. You can't really eliminate all of these dependencies, but you can eliminate / reduce some of the highest risk ones (topmost layers).

heywoodlh 4y ago
> Just like security, you settle for the risk you can afford and are comfortable with Right, I totally agree. What I'm not a fan of is this site actively encouraging people to call out others for not owning their own content. If we are gonna compare to security, it would be like suggesting everyone should adhere to the same threat model -- which just isn't practical. > The cloud muddies your grasp of the risks though. Are you saying "you" generally or me specifically? Because I was just using a CDN built on AWS as an example of not being able to own all parts of your stack. It's mostly impossible for an individual and most companies to build a CDN on their own hardware as most entities don't have datacenters around the world.
- rapind 4y ago
  > Are you saying "you" generally or me specifically? Generally, as in all of us.
  - heywoodlh 4y ago
    Ah, yeah. I see what you mean. I run a K8s cluster at home (I also work with AWS EKS) and in a lot of ways I see the upsides of what you gain with K8s. I also see why a ton of people won't ever need the complexity of K8s and I can see how the complexity/downsides would outweigh the benefits in the majority of situations.

neoromantique 4y ago

Having CF handle your CDN proxying is still much better than just using some all in one platform. At least you own your data and can migrate it if need be.

heywoodlh 4y ago
I absolutely agree -- I was just using that as an example of how subjective "owning your own platform" is. EDIT: I originally said "owning your own content" but "owning your own platform" is more in line with what I am talking about
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  I don't think the CDN qualifies as a "platform" because, I think almost by definition, a platform is something that's hard to move your application off of. It's relatively painless to switch your app's CDN provider compared to, say, moving it between AWS/DigitalOcean/Azure.
  - heywoodlh 4y ago
    I totally see what you mean and I agree with you. As I said in another comment I have no problems with Cloudflare or CDNs -- and like you said in another comment CDNs can actually make it cheaper and safer to self host your own application. > I don't think the CDN qualifies as a "platform" I think you are 100% correct and I agree with your point. But I think even your disagreement with my comment highlights the original point I was making: "ownership" of "your platform" and what those terms mean to you is super subjective based on your values, skillset, etc. Wouldn't you agree on that point? If so, doesn't it come off as condescending (like you felt about my original comment) to tell people what they should or should not do with their digital content creation? My whole point was that it bothered me that this site encourages people to call out others for creating content on a platform they have disagreement with -- who creates that standard of what is suitably "owned" or not?
digitallyfree 4y ago
Not just the data, but the infrastructure as well. A CDN lets me host on my own equipment rather than renting cloud compute - and I can change CDN providers anytime I like.

_carbyau_ 4y ago

Depends what your platform is but most of the examples given are about content. So I see it as own your content and don't licence it out or be unprepared to migrate hosting platforms as needed.

heywoodlh 4y ago
Good point about content and licensing. It is discouraging to understand that in most cases when people post content it isn't theirs anymore despite them taking the time to create it.

bragr 4y ago

Unless you are using Cloudflare's specialized security services, CDN is pretty interchangeable and easy to switch between. You can ever do dynamic DNS things to use multiple CDNs at the same time and shift different traffic segments onto different providers if you are into that sort of things, or tier one CDN behind another to act as a mid tier. I don't really understand why the decentralized internet folks harp on CDNs because they will be very required if they ever get their way since by definition, if everyone is running small to medium, highly distributed sites, then you aren't likely to have a point of presence near most users and that will be poor user experience. My guess is that most people have only heard of Akamai or Cloudflare so they automatically associate CDN with huge companies, but the reality is that the CDN space is highly competitive and decentralized. Just off the top of my head there's at least a dozen providers I would consider tier 1, several dozen I would classify as medium sized or targeted at niche audiences, and probably hundreds of small providers, not to mention just about every large telco operates their own CDN now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network#Notable_content_delivery_service_providers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network#Notab...

tomjakubowski 4y ago
> I don't really understand why the decentralized internet folks harp on CDNs +1,000,000 here. CDNs are exactly a mechanism for distributing content around the world in order to serve users locally. It's exactly decentralization! And, as you point out, the industry harbors healthy competition.
- SnowHill9902 4y ago
  Distributed physically but not from an ownership standpoint.
heywoodlh 4y ago
> I don't really understand why the decentralized internet folks harp on CDNs For sure, I was just using it as an example on how subjective "owning your platform" can be. I actually have zero problems with Cloudflare, CDNs, etc. If I did have a problem with it and you disagreed, wouldn't that still illustrate my point that "ownership" is subjective and opinionated?

webmaven 4y ago

> I'm being nitpicky but it feels off to me to call people out on owning their own platform but then use Cloudflare's CDN instead of running their own. Infrastructure isn't a platform, and vice versa. If Cloudflare started to make editorial decisions about which web traffic to "promote" to users, there would be hell to pay.

heywoodlh 4y ago
> Infrastructure isn't a platform, and vice versa. I gave this some thought and after a bit I disagree with this. Wasn't Parler an example of infrastructure being used to editorialize _against_ specific opinions and ideas?[1] As I understand it, they were kicked off of AWS and refused by multiple infrastructure providers for hosting content that was perceived as offensive and potentially dangerous. Is that not an example of infrastructure being part of the platform? *I want to make clear I do not use Parler at all and am in no way stating I am either for or against it -- I just think it's an interesting example. I would love to hear your perspective, though, on that. To clarify, though, my original point is that "owning" your "platform" is subject to your values and experience. Do you agree with that? I actually have zero problems with anyone using Cloudflare, CDNs, etc, I just think it feels self righteous to encourage people to call out others for not owning their own content (which the original website does). [1] https://time.com/5929888/amazon-parler-aws/ https://time.com/5929888/amazon-parler-aws/ EDIT: forgot to add the link :)
- webmaven 4y ago
  > Wasn't Parler an example of infrastructure being used to editorialize _against_ specific opinions and ideas?[1] As I understand it, they were kicked off of AWS and refused by multiple infrastructure providers for hosting content that was perceived as offensive and potentially dangerous. Is that not an example of infrastructure being part of the platform? Sure. Businesses have always tried to have it both ways, and really like being necessary infrastructure while still having the option to refuse service. And, to be fair, AWS (and Cloudflare) aren't quite at the point where they are going to be publicly regulated utilities that no longer have the option of refusing to provide service (like an electricity or phone service provider). But they are getting closer to that every day, and eventually we'll stop talking about IaaS and start talking about IaaU (once most other providers give up the Tesla-vs-Edison fight and concede that AWS has defined the APIs that have become the defacto standards they need to copy). But even in a hosting-as-regulated-utility (or common-carrier, which is the relevant term from the transportation and communication industries) world, there are still exceptions and there are lots of things that in the name of public safety etc. you aren't allowed to do when using these services, and limits that are imposed. I don't really expect utility services like compute, storage, edge caching, content replication and distribution, etc. to be exceptions to that.

rd07 4y ago

I think hosting a website in a low powered computer like Raspberry Pi can be an alternative to really own our platform. Granted, it can't handle big traffic, but it is cheap enough to built and maintain yourself.

heywoodlh 4y ago
Totally agreed. And what you said is in-line with my original thought that "owning" your "platform" is super subjective and opinionated. Some people think that infrastructure is part of your platform and some don't!
winternett 4y ago
A light weight site run on a traditional web host is fine for most use cases early on in my opinion. The problem is so many people think of costly cloud hosting as the first move and burn up all their capital even before they reach 10k users. That is why the dot com era was more fruitful. People started in their basement, and service outages were not a big deal... Heck, service outages were often the thing that spurred more interest in products and also spurred users to invest so that products could scale.

spatley 4y ago

The day cloudflare starts filtering individual pieces of content, I would get out fast. FB, twitter, et. al. show me what they think will keep me looking at them for as long as possible. It is only coincidence that it is sometimes content I actually want. If I can get all my friends to just post by RSS I don’t need or want anything else those platforms do.

heywoodlh 4y ago
Sure, I agree. I actually have no problems with Cloudflare, CDNs, etc. I was just using the website's use of Cloudflare CDN as an example that "owning" your "platform" is subjective to everyone's personal experience and values. And I have a problem that the site encourages people to call out others who don't line up with their view of what owning the platform means to them.
lmm 4y ago
How are you defining "filtering individual pieces of content"? Cloudflare kicked off The Daily Stormer and acknowledged that they were doing so as their own choice for political reasons.
- SnowHill9902 4y ago
  MITMing and filtering or blocking fragments of a request.
- spatley 4y ago
  That is the very issue I consider. The Daily Stormer block was done to an entire business which is a different thing than prioritizing some posts over others from the same source. It is worth discussing cloudflare’s decision to block the Stormer. But that is different than Facebook’s optimization AI choosing to not show me posts from people I choose to follow. Both are potentially concerning and complex, but I consider them to be separate topics.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

But you don't actually need a CDN unless you're optimizing / min-maxing for speed; someone's leftover raspberry pi running in a broom closet halfway across the world can serve a website just as well as an AWS cluster can. Of course, if you get bigger you need to start making some concessions, but for a lot of people that's wishful thinking. I remember when I was 16, there were these guys that made really shitty voiceovers and edits for videos and put them online. They just had a computer running at home. It'd get hammered whenever they uploaded a new video, but it worked. They didn't rely on anyone else - hell, this was before youtube was a thing.