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Where’s the profitability in the DDoS service? Even free accounts have had massive DDoS attacks mitigated - for free. There is no pricing anywhere in their por

Where’s the profitability in the DDoS service? Even free accounts have had massive DDoS attacks mitigated - for free. There is no pricing anywhere in their portfolio for DDoS mitigation or bandwidth. Cloudflare sells a lot of products but DDoS protection isn’t one of them. It’s a hook to get users on the platform to potentially upsell later but if all you need is DDoS protection they provide it for free.

inopinatus 3y ago
Enterprise DDoS protection is their goddamn flagship product. The Cloudflare website just says “call us”. That’s all. And it’s because E&G deals aren’t made through a website. Read the 10-K before spouting off about what value creation a middleman provides, and how it captures that value as revenue. Consumer services are last on their list and given little space. Large customers are explicitly stated as Cloudflare’s sales focus. And the entire top of the list of their disclosed competitors is everyone who sells a WAF or network protection apparatus to that segment. > they provide it for free This is naive. As ever, if it’s free, that means you’re part of the product. For social media, as is well understood, that’s your eyeballs sold to advertisers. In the case of Cloudflare, it’s consumer traffic that they pass as a middleman, used to build peering leverage through sheer volume. The clearest confirmation of this, however, is still Cloudflare going to all the time and trouble to wrangle together an industry collective - the so-called “bandwidth alliance” - for the express purpose of driving down settlement-based peering fees. They are not altruists. This is the architecture of their competitive advantage.
- kkielhofner 3y ago
  > Enterprise DDoS protection is their goddamn flagship product. The Cloudflare website just says “call us”. That’s all. And it’s because E&G deals aren’t made through a website. What does this have to do with anything? Cloudflare understands their customers very well and if you need "Enterprise" functionality of course it's behind contact us - just like nearly any other "enterprise" tier with any solution. > Read the 10-K before spouting off about what value creation a middleman provides, and how it captures that value as revenue. The unwarranted hostility across your comment tells me you have personal issues with Cloudflare that are entering the discussion. That's fine, and you can use whatever you prefer/works for you. > This is naive. As ever, if it’s free, that means you’re part of the product. Again, unwarranted hostility. Cloudflare goes into depth explaining why they offer their free tier and relatively inexpensive plans until "Enterprise". In short, free is where they roll out changes in the architecture first to test them. This is fair. Additionally, because they get a lot of traffic with the free and inexpensive plans they are able to provide a better experience to all users across plans due to the significant amounts of traffic they are able to capture and analyze. Comparing their approach with social media platforms grabbing eyeballs to attract advertising revenue is disingenuous at best. > The clearest confirmation of this, however, is still Cloudflare going to all the time and trouble to wrangle together an industry collective - the so-called “bandwidth alliance” - for the express purpose of driving down settlement-based peering fees. What is wrong with this? I've built networks, bought transit, done peering, etc. Cloudflare has excellent points with their "no egress charges" and bandwidth alliance. The obscene egress bandwidth markup from other providers is absurd. They clearly take advantage of people without the experience of peering, buying transit, etc who end up believing "that's just what bandwidth costs". > They are not altruists. I never said they were. Please show me a large and publicly traded company that is.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - inopinatus 3y ago
    > The unwarranted hostility across your comment tells me you have personal issues with Cloudflare that are entering the discussion. Mistaking bluntness for hostility is an error. Turning it into a vague ad hominem is a choice. > Cloudflare goes into depth explaining why they offer their free tier That seems credulous. Read financial statements, not puff pieces, to analyse and understand a company.

inopinatus 3y ago

Enterprise DDoS protection is their goddamn flagship product. The Cloudflare website just says “call us”. That’s all. And it’s because E&G deals aren’t made through a website. Read the 10-K before spouting off about what value creation a middleman provides, and how it captures that value as revenue. Consumer services are last on their list and given little space. Large customers are explicitly stated as Cloudflare’s sales focus. And the entire top of the list of their disclosed competitors is everyone who sells a WAF or network protection apparatus to that segment. > they provide it for free This is naive. As ever, if it’s free, that means you’re part of the product. For social media, as is well understood, that’s your eyeballs sold to advertisers. In the case of Cloudflare, it’s consumer traffic that they pass as a middleman, used to build peering leverage through sheer volume. The clearest confirmation of this, however, is still Cloudflare going to all the time and trouble to wrangle together an industry collective - the so-called “bandwidth alliance” - for the express purpose of driving down settlement-based peering fees. They are not altruists. This is the architecture of their competitive advantage.

kkielhofner 3y ago
> Enterprise DDoS protection is their goddamn flagship product. The Cloudflare website just says “call us”. That’s all. And it’s because E&G deals aren’t made through a website. What does this have to do with anything? Cloudflare understands their customers very well and if you need "Enterprise" functionality of course it's behind contact us - just like nearly any other "enterprise" tier with any solution. > Read the 10-K before spouting off about what value creation a middleman provides, and how it captures that value as revenue. The unwarranted hostility across your comment tells me you have personal issues with Cloudflare that are entering the discussion. That's fine, and you can use whatever you prefer/works for you. > This is naive. As ever, if it’s free, that means you’re part of the product. Again, unwarranted hostility. Cloudflare goes into depth explaining why they offer their free tier and relatively inexpensive plans until "Enterprise". In short, free is where they roll out changes in the architecture first to test them. This is fair. Additionally, because they get a lot of traffic with the free and inexpensive plans they are able to provide a better experience to all users across plans due to the significant amounts of traffic they are able to capture and analyze. Comparing their approach with social media platforms grabbing eyeballs to attract advertising revenue is disingenuous at best. > The clearest confirmation of this, however, is still Cloudflare going to all the time and trouble to wrangle together an industry collective - the so-called “bandwidth alliance” - for the express purpose of driving down settlement-based peering fees. What is wrong with this? I've built networks, bought transit, done peering, etc. Cloudflare has excellent points with their "no egress charges" and bandwidth alliance. The obscene egress bandwidth markup from other providers is absurd. They clearly take advantage of people without the experience of peering, buying transit, etc who end up believing "that's just what bandwidth costs". > They are not altruists. I never said they were. Please show me a large and publicly traded company that is.
- deleted 3y ago
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- inopinatus 3y ago
  > The unwarranted hostility across your comment tells me you have personal issues with Cloudflare that are entering the discussion. Mistaking bluntness for hostility is an error. Turning it into a vague ad hominem is a choice. > Cloudflare goes into depth explaining why they offer their free tier That seems credulous. Read financial statements, not puff pieces, to analyse and understand a company.