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Google and Cloudflare pretty much rules at least 98% of the internet. If they don't want you to see something, then you won't see it. Welcome to this brave new

Google and Cloudflare pretty much rules at least 98% of the internet. If they don't want you to see something, then you won't see it. Welcome to this brave new world. Though to be fair, it didn't start now. But in the past years people were cheering for the random blocks and removals. The article seems to concentrate on adblockers mostly, but it is even more interesting which news, topics and conversations (etc) reach you, and which ones are not. Google wanting you to see ads isn't too surprising. Google not wanting you to see reporting not fitting their agenda (even if you watch all ads coming with it) is much more interesting.

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scubbo 3y ago
How can Cloudflare prevent content from being seen? If they stop providing CDN support for a given service, there are plenty of other CDNs - the content is just as accessible to consumers if provided via a different CDN. By contrast, if Google delists something from search results, it becomes much harder to discover - and thus, to be consumed (by the average moderately-motivated customer, not to the dedicated person willing to navigate directly to a domain)
- not_your_vase 3y ago
  Oh, Cloudflare is much more than CDN. Their DNS routing, internet backbone and DDoS protection has much more powerful effect. Most of the internet traffic touches them one way or another (random internet stats say close to 80%). Sure, you can switch CDN, but most of the world will be able to access your site through IP address only, and/or the site will be DDoS'd in a matter of minutes if CF hints that you are the "bad guy du jour". (Do you remember, like 3 or 4 years ago when CF CEO was bragging all over the internet with "oh, today I woke up, and decided to kick off x and y from the internet, lol"? And he really did. It still happens, but without the bragging)
  - scubbo 3y ago
    TIL, thank you! Yup, DNS delisting would be an even greater impact than Google delisting. > Do you remember, like 3 or 4 years ago when CF CEO was bragging all over the internet with "oh, today I woke up, and decided to kick off x and y from the internet, lol"? I do not! And if I did, I would have had a much better idea what you were talking about :)

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scubbo 3y ago

How can Cloudflare prevent content from being seen? If they stop providing CDN support for a given service, there are plenty of other CDNs - the content is just as accessible to consumers if provided via a different CDN. By contrast, if Google delists something from search results, it becomes much harder to discover - and thus, to be consumed (by the average moderately-motivated customer, not to the dedicated person willing to navigate directly to a domain)

not_your_vase 3y ago
Oh, Cloudflare is much more than CDN. Their DNS routing, internet backbone and DDoS protection has much more powerful effect. Most of the internet traffic touches them one way or another (random internet stats say close to 80%). Sure, you can switch CDN, but most of the world will be able to access your site through IP address only, and/or the site will be DDoS'd in a matter of minutes if CF hints that you are the "bad guy du jour". (Do you remember, like 3 or 4 years ago when CF CEO was bragging all over the internet with "oh, today I woke up, and decided to kick off x and y from the internet, lol"? And he really did. It still happens, but without the bragging)
- scubbo 3y ago
  TIL, thank you! Yup, DNS delisting would be an even greater impact than Google delisting. > Do you remember, like 3 or 4 years ago when CF CEO was bragging all over the internet with "oh, today I woke up, and decided to kick off x and y from the internet, lol"? I do not! And if I did, I would have had a much better idea what you were talking about :)