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I find it problematic that we would consider it bad for a company or group to be highly effective. I for one would not want to create disincentives for a compan
by zaphar 4y ago
I find it problematic that we would consider it bad for a company or group to be highly effective. I for one would not want to create disincentives for a company to be effective at their value prop.
It's not Cloudflare's fault that no one else is living up to the standard they are setting. There are other options out there for DDos projection that you can use. Using Cloudflare is a choice on the part of customers. A choice they should be free to make. Them being the best at what they do shouldn't be a considered a problem.
- bombcar 4y agoIt becomes a potential tragedy of the commons and an effective monopoly eventually. Most people don't really have a problem with Cloudflare being the best DDOS; it's when they are also the best CDN, DNS host, etc that the possibility of becoming the single point of failure grows.
- zaphar 4y agoTragedy of the commons applies to a community shared resource not a service like Cloudflare. Effective monopoly makes a little more sense but I guess I sort of object since there is literally nothing other than money preventing someone from competing with them. Switching costs for Cloudflare are effectively 0 other than the cost of using a less effective competitor. I could turn them off right now for my properties and have almost no impact. They still have to compete to maintain that position so monopoly doesn't feel like the right term here.
- Spooky23 4y agoThe shared commons is the open interconnection of the internet. By becoming a mediator at scale, CF potentially renders the value of the commons moot. The ill effects aren’t on you - you’re just a node in a larger network. What happens when Google, Microsoft or Oracle buy them? Pretty obvious.
- zaphar 4y agoI don't follow this at all. The open interconnection of the internet still works no matter what Cloudflare does. My users can still get to my site. When they no longer can because of Cloudflare I can easily drop them and/or switch to an alternative. Cloudflare is literally not capable of preventing people from reaching my site unless they ask me to. The minute they cause a problem I can drop them. There is no shared commons problem or monopoly problem here.
- Spooky23 4y agoAt some point, we need to think about the effect on the market in addition to the return on investment for the people who founded cloudflare. Use Apple as a frequent target of HN ire. When it was a high growth marketplace, everyone liked the AppStore - instant distribution to a fresh new market. Now, smartphones have matured, Apple is increasingly dominant vs sleepy Google, and that AppStore that was once a land of opportunity is now a drag, a pseudo tax. The cloudflare model would be considered predatory under different regulatory regimes. They are great at what they do, but every incentive exists for them to be a malevolent influence on the market.
- zaphar 4y agoThis is sort of my point. Cloudflare is essentially invisible to the users unless they exhibit markers putting them in a suspicious category. Which is fine with me as a provider. Meanwhile the switching cost for me as a site provider is effectively 0. The only effect they can really have on the market is making everyone have to up their game to be competitive. They can't lock me in because of how the internet works. If I as a site operator want to drop them it's roughly about 10 minutes worth of work.