6 ms·

I think there are a few other benefits (even if that was the main benefit/driving force behind the decision). When you have low-paying (or zero-paying) custome

by mdasen 2y ago

I think there are a few other benefits (even if that was the main benefit/driving force behind the decision). When you have low-paying (or zero-paying) customers, you need to make your system easy. When you're enterprise-only, you can pay for stuff like dedicated support reps. A company is paying you $1M+/year and you hire someone at $75,000 who is dedicated to a few clients. Anything that's confusing is just "Oh, put in a chat to Joe." It isn't the typical support experience: it's someone that knows you and your usage of the system. By contrast, Cloudflare had to make sure that its system was easy enough to use that free customers would be able to easily (cheaply) make sense of it. Even if you're going to give enterprise customers white-glove service, it's always nice for them when systems are easy and pleasant to use. When you're carrying so much free traffic, you have to be efficient. It pushes you to actually make systems that can handle scale and diverse situations without just throwing money at the problem. It's easy for companies to get bloated/lazy when they're fat off enterprise contracts - and that isn't a good recipe for long-term success. Finally, it's a good way to get mindshare. I used Cloudflare for years just proxying my personal blog that got very little traffic. When my employer was thinking about switching CDNs, myself and others who had used Cloudflare personally kinda pushed the "we should really be looking at Cloudflare." Free customers may never give you a dollar - but they might know someone or work for someone who will give you millions. Software engineers love things that they can use for free and that has often paid dividends for companies behind those free things.

ljm 2y ago
I feel like there might be an additional motivation too, which is that this investment in a better internet (free SSL for everyone before LetsEncrypt came around, generous free tiers for users, etc. etc.) means that Cloudflare builds a reputation of being a steward of the ecosystem while also benefitting indirectly from wider adoption of good, secure practices. In some ways it's analogous to investing in your local community and arguably paying tax: it's rare that you would directly and personally benefit from this, but if the environment you live in improves from it, crime is reduced, more to do, etc. then you can enjoy a better quality of life.
- ipaddr 2y ago
  Have they made a better internet? Many would say that made it worse.
  - lostlogin 2y ago
    I don’t know the history here, do you have some examples? My usage is pretty much limited to their DNS.
    - iamacyborg 2y ago
      They’ve got a pretty long history of helping scammers and criminals. https://www.spamhaus.org/resource-hub/service-providers/too-big-to-care-our-disappointment-with-cloudflares-anti-abuse-posture/ https://www.spamhaus.org/resource-hub/service-providers/too-...
      - Aeolun 2y ago
        So the better internet is for everyone, is that so bad? I’d rather have them help everyone than make arbitrary decisions about who gets served. That’s what we have the legal system for.
        lostlogin 2y ago
        It gets into the weeds fast. I thought I was all for free speech, then the Christchurch terrorist shared his live stream of him killing people. The legal system is too slow and private companies have a dubious record of what they police. What’s a good model to follow?
        mschuster91 2y ago
        > The legal system is too slow and private companies have a dubious record of what they police. What’s a good model to follow? Get the legal system in shape. Yeet everyone above pension age out of public office so that we finally may get people into power who grew up with smartphones instead of old farts who let their secretaries print out e-mails and type audio recordings into letters. Then, do the same for police leadership and DAs, yeet the brawns and get the brains. You can't prosecute IT crimes if your average police officer doesn't even know what a proxy or a money mule scam is or if the DA is too goddamn lazy to file a subpoena because the damage is less than 950 dollars. Then, crack the whip on domestic telcos, ISPs and hosters. Whoever hosts anything connected with more than 200 users has to have a 24/7/365 abuse hotline that has the manpower and authority to investigate abuse claims and remediate them (i.e. disconnect whoever is causing the problem until this party has remediated the issue on their end) in less than four hours. Then, crack the whip on manufacturers of smart devices. Mandate that every Thing sold with an internet connectivity get at least security updates for a decade, and that the full source code for everything in it including signing keys for firmware be submitted to Library of Congress or whatever archive and released when the manufacturer either goes bust or declares end of life for that Thing. And then, get the State Department into shape. Countries from which malicious traffic operates or where money from scams gets exfiltrated to get half a year to get their shit in order and be good netizens, or they get cut off from Western nations. No SWIFT, no Internet, no SS7. The Internet at its fundamental core (cough BGP) runs on the assumptions of a high-trust society, which has led to issues all over the place as the world has shifted towards a no-trust-at-all lawless society and as it is impossible to uproot probably trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure, drastic action needs to be taken to restore the Internet to a high-trust place again.
bentcorner 2y ago
Reminds me of the School -> Pro pipeline where companies sell cheaply or even give away their software to learning institutions so that students who go pro are familiar with their tools and then later recommend it for their work.
- DaiPlusPlus 2y ago
  That’s absolutely true for things like MS Office and Adobe - but it also works in the other direction: I’m sure making kids use Java for AP computer-science or for undergrad contributed to its uncool status today.
  - ninjha 2y ago
    The two almost-contradictory takes I hold about this are… - Java is cool, actually - Java would be just as uncool even if people weren’t required to use it in school
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    The problem for Java's "uncool status" isn't Java as a programming language, the JVM or its academic use IMHO, it rather is a consequence of large-enterprise culture. Large enterprise doesn't value "creativity" or any deviation from standards, but it does value plans and estimates - hence clueless, brainless "managers" and "architects" forced programmers to do absolutely insane bullshit busywork that a gang of monkeys on LSD could do, and that culture spread throughout the large-enterprise world. On top of that come "design by committee" stuff like CORBA, XML, SOAP, Java EE, Enterprise Beans and everything associated with this particular horror show, JDBC... You can do absolutely mind blowing stuff with Java and the JVM. But fuck corporate for torturing Java and the poor sods tasked with the busywork. Java got the image it has because programmers want to be creative but could not be so because their bosses were braindead.
    - nasduia 2y ago
      The historical Java patterns of factories of gizmos modified by adapters on adapters etc. really makes the large codebases miserable to work on. Along its enterprise lifespan it picked up all the fad modelling/project jargon/pattern nonsense (which as you rightly say were there to limit creativity) and that is now embedded in codebases. It might be that a new Java enterprise application started from scratch would be lovely, but those are rarely seen in the actual enterprise world. I don't think it was ever uncool because of the core language, it was always uncool because of the standard libraries, UIs and culture.
fheisler 2y ago
This is exactly our thinking with authentik (open source IdP), and it's played out in practice so far. Enterprise sales conversations are so much easier when they start with "we all use you in our homelabs already." We're much more focused on giving those individual users a positive early experience (in hopes that some small percentage will really pay off down the road) than in extracting a few dollars from each of them.
- CWuestefeld 2y ago
  I had this exact conversation with a Cloudflare rep a year or two ago, after I told her how I user their free DNS service. She said, "that free service was the best thing we ever did". And we wound up buying their bot management and DDOS services.
nindalf 2y ago
I built my website on Cloudflare Pages and ended up using basically their entire suite of tools - Pages, D1, Analytics, Rules, Functions. The DX was pretty good because all of these features worked well together. Cloudflare offered all of this for free because it gets them positive mentions (like the one you’re reading right now) and they’re educating a bunch of developers on their entire product portfolio. And what does it cost to host my blog that 1000-2000 views a month? Literally nothing.
- Moru 2y ago
  I have been bitten many times by this usage of free stuff that suddenly starts to cost money so it took a while before I dared to use cloudflare. Have been using it for a few years now without any surprise bills so still happy. Hope I didn't jinx it now. :-)
  - nindalf 2y ago
    Think it'll stay the same as long as the CEO (Prince) and CTO (Graham-Cumming) stay in place. Policies might change with a change of leadership, but even then I don't consider it likely.
- mentalgear 2y ago
  This approach is good as long as the tech stack is open source and portable to other platforms. Otherwise, no matter how good a company/CEO seems ATM, you are ultimately at their mercy if they decide to raise prices significantly. By using an open, interoperable tech stack, you maintain the freedom to switch to another cloud provider at will. This shared fluid power also creates a compelling reason for cloud providers to remain honest and competitive in their dealings with customers.
  - nindalf 2y ago
    You don't get it. For most companies free users are just a source of potential paid customers. Such companies squeeze the free users to force them to upgrade. For Cloudflare the millions of free users strengthen their negotiating power with ISPs around the world. We provide value to Cloudflare just by being Cloudflare customers. It is possible that Cloudflare might get a CEO who doesn't understand this, but possible doesn't mean likely. In any case, I've built my website with Astro, pulling in the Cloudflare integration as a dependency. If I wanted to switch to Vercel or Netlify or whatever else, Astro makes it easy. As for database, others offer managed Sqlite. If all else fails, I'll ditch the few dynamic parts of the website and deploy the bulk of the site as static html to Github Pages or something.

by mdasen 2y ago

ljm 2y ago

I feel like there might be an additional motivation too, which is that this investment in a better internet (free SSL for everyone before LetsEncrypt came around, generous free tiers for users, etc. etc.) means that Cloudflare builds a reputation of being a steward of the ecosystem while also benefitting indirectly from wider adoption of good, secure practices. In some ways it's analogous to investing in your local community and arguably paying tax: it's rare that you would directly and personally benefit from this, but if the environment you live in improves from it, crime is reduced, more to do, etc. then you can enjoy a better quality of life.

ipaddr 2y ago
Have they made a better internet? Many would say that made it worse.
- lostlogin 2y ago
  I don’t know the history here, do you have some examples? My usage is pretty much limited to their DNS.
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    They’ve got a pretty long history of helping scammers and criminals. https://www.spamhaus.org/resource-hub/service-providers/too-big-to-care-our-disappointment-with-cloudflares-anti-abuse-posture/ https://www.spamhaus.org/resource-hub/service-providers/too-...
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      So the better internet is for everyone, is that so bad? I’d rather have them help everyone than make arbitrary decisions about who gets served. That’s what we have the legal system for.
      - lostlogin 2y ago
        It gets into the weeds fast. I thought I was all for free speech, then the Christchurch terrorist shared his live stream of him killing people. The legal system is too slow and private companies have a dubious record of what they police. What’s a good model to follow?
        mschuster91 2y ago
        > The legal system is too slow and private companies have a dubious record of what they police. What’s a good model to follow? Get the legal system in shape. Yeet everyone above pension age out of public office so that we finally may get people into power who grew up with smartphones instead of old farts who let their secretaries print out e-mails and type audio recordings into letters. Then, do the same for police leadership and DAs, yeet the brawns and get the brains. You can't prosecute IT crimes if your average police officer doesn't even know what a proxy or a money mule scam is or if the DA is too goddamn lazy to file a subpoena because the damage is less than 950 dollars. Then, crack the whip on domestic telcos, ISPs and hosters. Whoever hosts anything connected with more than 200 users has to have a 24/7/365 abuse hotline that has the manpower and authority to investigate abuse claims and remediate them (i.e. disconnect whoever is causing the problem until this party has remediated the issue on their end) in less than four hours. Then, crack the whip on manufacturers of smart devices. Mandate that every Thing sold with an internet connectivity get at least security updates for a decade, and that the full source code for everything in it including signing keys for firmware be submitted to Library of Congress or whatever archive and released when the manufacturer either goes bust or declares end of life for that Thing. And then, get the State Department into shape. Countries from which malicious traffic operates or where money from scams gets exfiltrated to get half a year to get their shit in order and be good netizens, or they get cut off from Western nations. No SWIFT, no Internet, no SS7. The Internet at its fundamental core (cough BGP) runs on the assumptions of a high-trust society, which has led to issues all over the place as the world has shifted towards a no-trust-at-all lawless society and as it is impossible to uproot probably trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure, drastic action needs to be taken to restore the Internet to a high-trust place again.

bentcorner 2y ago

Reminds me of the School -> Pro pipeline where companies sell cheaply or even give away their software to learning institutions so that students who go pro are familiar with their tools and then later recommend it for their work.

DaiPlusPlus 2y ago
That’s absolutely true for things like MS Office and Adobe - but it also works in the other direction: I’m sure making kids use Java for AP computer-science or for undergrad contributed to its uncool status today.
- ninjha 2y ago
  The two almost-contradictory takes I hold about this are… - Java is cool, actually - Java would be just as uncool even if people weren’t required to use it in school
- mschuster91 2y ago
  The problem for Java's "uncool status" isn't Java as a programming language, the JVM or its academic use IMHO, it rather is a consequence of large-enterprise culture. Large enterprise doesn't value "creativity" or any deviation from standards, but it does value plans and estimates - hence clueless, brainless "managers" and "architects" forced programmers to do absolutely insane bullshit busywork that a gang of monkeys on LSD could do, and that culture spread throughout the large-enterprise world. On top of that come "design by committee" stuff like CORBA, XML, SOAP, Java EE, Enterprise Beans and everything associated with this particular horror show, JDBC... You can do absolutely mind blowing stuff with Java and the JVM. But fuck corporate for torturing Java and the poor sods tasked with the busywork. Java got the image it has because programmers want to be creative but could not be so because their bosses were braindead.
  - nasduia 2y ago
    The historical Java patterns of factories of gizmos modified by adapters on adapters etc. really makes the large codebases miserable to work on. Along its enterprise lifespan it picked up all the fad modelling/project jargon/pattern nonsense (which as you rightly say were there to limit creativity) and that is now embedded in codebases. It might be that a new Java enterprise application started from scratch would be lovely, but those are rarely seen in the actual enterprise world. I don't think it was ever uncool because of the core language, it was always uncool because of the standard libraries, UIs and culture.

fheisler 2y ago

This is exactly our thinking with authentik (open source IdP), and it's played out in practice so far. Enterprise sales conversations are so much easier when they start with "we all use you in our homelabs already." We're much more focused on giving those individual users a positive early experience (in hopes that some small percentage will really pay off down the road) than in extracting a few dollars from each of them.

CWuestefeld 2y ago
I had this exact conversation with a Cloudflare rep a year or two ago, after I told her how I user their free DNS service. She said, "that free service was the best thing we ever did". And we wound up buying their bot management and DDOS services.

nindalf 2y ago

I built my website on Cloudflare Pages and ended up using basically their entire suite of tools - Pages, D1, Analytics, Rules, Functions. The DX was pretty good because all of these features worked well together. Cloudflare offered all of this for free because it gets them positive mentions (like the one you’re reading right now) and they’re educating a bunch of developers on their entire product portfolio. And what does it cost to host my blog that 1000-2000 views a month? Literally nothing.

Moru 2y ago
I have been bitten many times by this usage of free stuff that suddenly starts to cost money so it took a while before I dared to use cloudflare. Have been using it for a few years now without any surprise bills so still happy. Hope I didn't jinx it now. :-)
- nindalf 2y ago
  Think it'll stay the same as long as the CEO (Prince) and CTO (Graham-Cumming) stay in place. Policies might change with a change of leadership, but even then I don't consider it likely.
mentalgear 2y ago
This approach is good as long as the tech stack is open source and portable to other platforms. Otherwise, no matter how good a company/CEO seems ATM, you are ultimately at their mercy if they decide to raise prices significantly. By using an open, interoperable tech stack, you maintain the freedom to switch to another cloud provider at will. This shared fluid power also creates a compelling reason for cloud providers to remain honest and competitive in their dealings with customers.
- nindalf 2y ago
  You don't get it. For most companies free users are just a source of potential paid customers. Such companies squeeze the free users to force them to upgrade. For Cloudflare the millions of free users strengthen their negotiating power with ISPs around the world. We provide value to Cloudflare just by being Cloudflare customers. It is possible that Cloudflare might get a CEO who doesn't understand this, but possible doesn't mean likely. In any case, I've built my website with Astro, pulling in the Cloudflare integration as a dependency. If I wanted to switch to Vercel or Netlify or whatever else, Astro makes it easy. As for database, others offer managed Sqlite. If all else fails, I'll ditch the few dynamic parts of the website and deploy the bulk of the site as static html to Github Pages or something.