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straining is also ambiguous and disingenuous. if we believe the plan was $200 and the upgrade was to a $2,000 plan.. there's no way a $2,000 user would be "st

straining is also ambiguous and disingenuous. if we believe the plan was $200 and the upgrade was to a $2,000 plan.. there's no way a $2,000 user would be "straining" Cloudflare's network. We spend more than that. If we are putting a strain on Cloudflare, they're not at the scale we think they're at.

gruez 2y ago
Seems like you don't really have any issue with the underlying business decision (ie. pushing a high usage customer to a higher tier plan) and are only upset about the wording the salesperson used. All the points you've made applies to ISPs as well. Most neighborhoods are probably provisioned well enough that a single customer saturating their 1gbit connection isn't going to bring the network down to its knees, but that doesn't mean ISPs aren't justified in pushing such customers to a higher tier offering (eg. dedicated circuit).
- BoorishBears 2y ago
  Why are you straining so hard and spending so many words to defend general scumminess. Invisible limits are an anti-pattern, simple as that.
  - gruez 2y ago
    See my other comment[1]. I'm not sure why you're straining so hard and spending so many words to defend "general scumminess", like the the right of a gambling site hosting dozens of domains (to evade government bans) on shared cloudflare IPs, or people expecting to get 1.2PB of bandwidth served out of a $200 CDN plan. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42717005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42717005
    - widerporst 2y ago
      If 1.2 PB is a problem, then why don't they just specify a bandwidth limit of say 1 PB? They specifically say "unlimited bandwidth", so yes, what they are doing _is_ scummy because there is a very obvious incongruity between what they claim and what they actually offer.
      - Aeolun 2y ago
        I imagine because people will immediately push up against the limit and no further. It’s much easier to detect these excessive users if their bandwidth naturally keeps growing.
      - hnav 2y ago
        This is just stratified pricing. If you're egressing 1.2PB ($50k+ worth of bw on AWS) there's a likelihood that you're earning a fair bit and an enterprise contract will be worth it to you when it comes to support. On the other hand if you're egressing 1.2PB to serve some open model weights that you don't charge for, CF would prefer to leave you to it and enable you to serve.
    - BoorishBears 2y ago
      You want this to be complicated so badly, but it's not. Hidden limits are an anti-pattern. There is no counter-argument. If they have a hard limit they can cut people off well ahead of 1.2PB of bandwidth with less ambiguity: it's a strictly better situation.
      - gruez 2y ago
        >You want this to be complicated so badly, but it's not. >Hidden limits are an anti-pattern. >There is no counter-argument. Here's a counterargument: do you get similarly upset that restaurants advertising "free refills" cut you off after you've been at the place for 12 hours and you dispensed 8L of coke? Explicit limits is how you get "limit one refill per customer", leaving most customers worse off. Do I think hidden limits are always better? No. It operates on a spectrum, and depends on how many "legitimate" customers are affected by the limit.
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        It doesn't sound like the number of refills is the real problem if you're worried about someone staying for 12 hours. If the rule was "you have to leave after 2 hours" or "after an hour, you get one last refill", that would solve the problem and affect almost nobody else, while being nice and explicit about expectations. (Or cut those numbers in half if you want, it's just an example.)
        gruez 2y ago
        >It doesn't sound like the number of refills is the real problem if you're worried about someone staying for 12 hours. A butt in seat doesn't cost the business any money as long as it's not displacing any paying customers (ie. the place isn't packed). Soda might be cheap but it's not free, so dispensing 8L of product does cost the business money. >If the rule was "you have to leave after 2 hours" or "after an hour, you get one last refill", that would solve the problem and affect almost nobody else, while being nice and explicit about expectations. (Or cut those numbers in half if you want, it's just an example.) See my other point about people riding up the limit. When you institute an explicit limit, you end up having to be more conservative because an explicit limit emboldens people to ride up right against the limit, rather than a fuzzy limit with the expectation that people act "reasonably". Instituting the limits you proposed would cause the problematic customers to chug soda within the allotted time, for instance. It also becomes a hassle for everyone else who's being reasonable. If I'm meeting with some friends after and need to kill an hour or two, I suddenly have to worry about whether I can stay without getting kicked out, etc. Most people, even above-average utilization customers lose out from this, and the only people who benefit are the ones taking advantage to an absurd degree.

gruez 2y ago

Seems like you don't really have any issue with the underlying business decision (ie. pushing a high usage customer to a higher tier plan) and are only upset about the wording the salesperson used. All the points you've made applies to ISPs as well. Most neighborhoods are probably provisioned well enough that a single customer saturating their 1gbit connection isn't going to bring the network down to its knees, but that doesn't mean ISPs aren't justified in pushing such customers to a higher tier offering (eg. dedicated circuit).

BoorishBears 2y ago
Why are you straining so hard and spending so many words to defend general scumminess. Invisible limits are an anti-pattern, simple as that.
- gruez 2y ago
  See my other comment[1]. I'm not sure why you're straining so hard and spending so many words to defend "general scumminess", like the the right of a gambling site hosting dozens of domains (to evade government bans) on shared cloudflare IPs, or people expecting to get 1.2PB of bandwidth served out of a $200 CDN plan. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42717005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42717005
  - widerporst 2y ago
    If 1.2 PB is a problem, then why don't they just specify a bandwidth limit of say 1 PB? They specifically say "unlimited bandwidth", so yes, what they are doing _is_ scummy because there is a very obvious incongruity between what they claim and what they actually offer.
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      I imagine because people will immediately push up against the limit and no further. It’s much easier to detect these excessive users if their bandwidth naturally keeps growing.
    - hnav 2y ago
      This is just stratified pricing. If you're egressing 1.2PB ($50k+ worth of bw on AWS) there's a likelihood that you're earning a fair bit and an enterprise contract will be worth it to you when it comes to support. On the other hand if you're egressing 1.2PB to serve some open model weights that you don't charge for, CF would prefer to leave you to it and enable you to serve.
  - BoorishBears 2y ago
    You want this to be complicated so badly, but it's not. Hidden limits are an anti-pattern. There is no counter-argument. If they have a hard limit they can cut people off well ahead of 1.2PB of bandwidth with less ambiguity: it's a strictly better situation.
    - gruez 2y ago
      >You want this to be complicated so badly, but it's not. >Hidden limits are an anti-pattern. >There is no counter-argument. Here's a counterargument: do you get similarly upset that restaurants advertising "free refills" cut you off after you've been at the place for 12 hours and you dispensed 8L of coke? Explicit limits is how you get "limit one refill per customer", leaving most customers worse off. Do I think hidden limits are always better? No. It operates on a spectrum, and depends on how many "legitimate" customers are affected by the limit.
      - Dylan16807 2y ago
        It doesn't sound like the number of refills is the real problem if you're worried about someone staying for 12 hours. If the rule was "you have to leave after 2 hours" or "after an hour, you get one last refill", that would solve the problem and affect almost nobody else, while being nice and explicit about expectations. (Or cut those numbers in half if you want, it's just an example.)
        gruez 2y ago
        >It doesn't sound like the number of refills is the real problem if you're worried about someone staying for 12 hours. A butt in seat doesn't cost the business any money as long as it's not displacing any paying customers (ie. the place isn't packed). Soda might be cheap but it's not free, so dispensing 8L of product does cost the business money. >If the rule was "you have to leave after 2 hours" or "after an hour, you get one last refill", that would solve the problem and affect almost nobody else, while being nice and explicit about expectations. (Or cut those numbers in half if you want, it's just an example.) See my other point about people riding up the limit. When you institute an explicit limit, you end up having to be more conservative because an explicit limit emboldens people to ride up right against the limit, rather than a fuzzy limit with the expectation that people act "reasonably". Instituting the limits you proposed would cause the problematic customers to chug soda within the allotted time, for instance. It also becomes a hassle for everyone else who's being reasonable. If I'm meeting with some friends after and need to kill an hour or two, I suddenly have to worry about whether I can stay without getting kicked out, etc. Most people, even above-average utilization customers lose out from this, and the only people who benefit are the ones taking advantage to an absurd degree.