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If Cloudflare is so vital to the internet, it should be nationalized for the public benefit as having a private entity with so much control over the internet is

If Cloudflare is so vital to the internet, it should be nationalized for the public benefit as having a private entity with so much control over the internet is not a good thing. Corporatized control of the internet should not be encouraged.

citizenpaul 1y ago
I would say if the political environment pre 1980s was still in existence that might be true. Today that would just mean the entire thing would unravel as it ate its own tail in the race to the bottom environment we are currently in.
- azemetre 1y ago
  You can create democratic policies to thwart this. Even something as basic as nationalizing Cloudflare then forcing workplace democracy provisions on it would probably do more good for, not just the Cloudflare workers, but society writ large.
- Gormo 1y ago
  Which political environment pre-1980s do you want to go back to? 1930s? 1850s? 1760s?
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > Which political environment pre-1980s do you want to go back to? 1934 [1]. [1] https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep295/usrep295602/usrep295602.pdf https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep... Humphrey's Executor vs. United States
    - Gormo 1y ago
      I can't imagine what a court case about whether the US president has the power to unilaterally dismiss officials in executive-branch agencies could possibly have to do with this. At least you're referencing the United States in 1934, though. Things were very dysfunctional politically in the US at that time, but not nearly as bad as what was going on in some other parts of the world.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > can't imagine what a court case about whether the US president has the power to unilaterally dismiss officials in executive-branch agencies could possibly have to do with this Seriously? You don't see the relevance of independent agencies to this discussion?
        Gormo 1y ago
        No. And the dynamics of inter-branch checks and balances within the US federal government aren't directly relevant to the question of whether the federal government as a whole is a reliable institution in the first place (nb: it isn't).
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > the dynamics of inter-branch checks and balances within the US federal government aren't directly relevant to the question of whether the federal government as a whole is a reliable institution in the first place You don’t see a reliability difference between a self-moderating and unmoderated system? Do you see any value in QC?
        Gormo 1y ago
        > You don’t see a reliability difference between a self-moderating and unmoderated system? I don't see there being a distinction between the two in the real world. An institutional system's behavior largely determined by the incentive structures that actually exist on the ground, irrespective of initial intentions or de jure rules. An institutional system that is expected to self-moderate is one where the motivations that inform its primary behavior are the same ones ultimately informing its self-moderation -- i.e. it's functionally equivalent to an unmoderated system, just more pretextual rationalization. > Do you see any value in QC? Sure. But I don't see much value in a QC process that's administered by the same people or judged against the same metrics as the thing it's QCing. I'd love the equivalent of QC to be applied to both legislation and administrative rule-making in our current system. Maybe with the Loper Bright decision, the courts will gradually resume responsibility for doing this properly. But the capricious and arbitrary nature of the current administration is revealing the extent to which checks and balances are already eroded, and just what an uphill battle that's likely to be. The entire political system in its current state is riddled with perverse incentives, and the mechanisms of external accountability are totally broken. Even with inter-branch checks and balances, the federal government in its current form is simply not trustworthy.
  - citizenpaul 1y ago
    I don't think there has ever been a perfect time but I also think there has been an ever increasing weakness in the governments desire/ability to enforce regulation roughly since that time period. I mean the reconstitution of AT&T was one of the IMO the biggest middle fingers to the public I've seen. It was broken up because it was a bad actor and now its back again as a worse than ever bad actor. That was kind my wake up call. I'm sure there is worse though that I don't remember because it was not tech related. I could be wrong I'm not a huge politics person. Either way I don't think any response to me invalidates my opinion that the current government would not do a better job than cloudflare currently is.
Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
Can't believe if you are joking or not. I trust a corporation more than I trust the nation you want it nationalized in (America?) EU maybe. But yes I don't want cloudflare to be part of america after patriotic acts and all the dystopia. Honestly, cloudflare is not so vital to the internet. Like, The only thing its gonna be a problem if they stop working without giving any way to migrate. Then yes, its gonna be a bit of problem to the internet.
- encom 1y ago
  >cloudflare is not so vital to the internet Really? Try distrusting CF certs, and see how much of your internet activity breaks. CF certs should be distrusted, because it's MITM by definition. At the very least, I'd like an addon that makes the URL bar bright red, so I know my connection isn't secure.
  - swiftcoder 1y ago
    It's not more vital, than, say, AWS. Blocking AWS certs/endpoints will break your internet too. Though arguably neither should be in a position to do so without being regulate as a public utility
    - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
      Yup, I also meant the same when I was writing my comment and although I agree about regulation, the thing is, that I don't even trust that aspect... Also, I know that there are sometimes where cloudflare sits in the middle between your servers and your users for DDOS protection, and so yes theoretically its a point of interception but given how their whole thing is security, I doubt that they would exploit it but yes its a point of concern. On the other hand, if something like this does happen, migrating can be easier or on the same level if something like this happened on like AWS. But cloudflare still feels safer than AWS y'know? That being said, I am all in for some regulations as a public utility but not nationalizing it as the GP comment suggested. Just some regulations would be nice but honestly we are in a bit of tough spot and maybe it was the necessity of the internet to have something like cloudflare to prevent DDOS's.
Gormo 1y ago
To make sure I understand, your position is that anything vitally important to the internet should not be under the control of a plurality of institutions subject to heterogenous incentive structures, but instead should be under the centralized, monopolistic control of a single institution that is perpetually compromised by perverse incentives and ulterior motives, whose mechanisms of accountability are mostly performative and demonstrably broken? I'm not sure that sounds like a good idea, if that's what you're saying.
- azemetre 1y ago
  My position is that if something becomes critical it should be under democratic constraints in a democratic society and not private enterprises that have no forms of control by the populace. Maybe if Cloudflare had workplace democracy my concerns would be different, but they don't and wield too much power. If it also helps I also think 99.99% of big tech should be broken up into separate, probably a few 100, different companies. So yes, anything vital for the internet should be controlled by the people through democratic norms, institutions, and values rather than dictatorships by those with money over those with none.
  - Gormo 1y ago
    No such thing as "democratic constraints" or "democratic society" at the level you're discussing. Democracy is an imperfect safeguard against certain types of extreme dysfunction of the political system -- a necessary one for sure, but not nearly sufficient to make the institutions it applies to trustworthy with monopolistic control over other aspects of society. Everything reduces to specific people acting on their a priori motivations in bounded contexts, and any system of centralized control is guaranteed to enable expressions of the worst motivations of the people involved. The distinctions you're making -- "private" vs. "public", "corporations" vs. "governments", etc. -- are fundamentally meaningless. There are no "democratic norms", just norms adhered to by specific people and the factions they form, contesting against each other for power over others. Performative "democracy" is often just cover to allow the currently dominant factions to function as "dictatorships". Decentralization and individual autonomy are the only solution to the problems you rightly care about, but what you're proposing is literally the opposite of that.

citizenpaul 1y ago

I would say if the political environment pre 1980s was still in existence that might be true. Today that would just mean the entire thing would unravel as it ate its own tail in the race to the bottom environment we are currently in.

azemetre 1y ago
You can create democratic policies to thwart this. Even something as basic as nationalizing Cloudflare then forcing workplace democracy provisions on it would probably do more good for, not just the Cloudflare workers, but society writ large.
Gormo 1y ago
Which political environment pre-1980s do you want to go back to? 1930s? 1850s? 1760s?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > Which political environment pre-1980s do you want to go back to? 1934 [1]. [1] https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep295/usrep295602/usrep295602.pdf https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep... Humphrey's Executor vs. United States
  - Gormo 1y ago
    I can't imagine what a court case about whether the US president has the power to unilaterally dismiss officials in executive-branch agencies could possibly have to do with this. At least you're referencing the United States in 1934, though. Things were very dysfunctional politically in the US at that time, but not nearly as bad as what was going on in some other parts of the world.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > can't imagine what a court case about whether the US president has the power to unilaterally dismiss officials in executive-branch agencies could possibly have to do with this Seriously? You don't see the relevance of independent agencies to this discussion?
      - Gormo 1y ago
        No. And the dynamics of inter-branch checks and balances within the US federal government aren't directly relevant to the question of whether the federal government as a whole is a reliable institution in the first place (nb: it isn't).
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > the dynamics of inter-branch checks and balances within the US federal government aren't directly relevant to the question of whether the federal government as a whole is a reliable institution in the first place You don’t see a reliability difference between a self-moderating and unmoderated system? Do you see any value in QC?
        Gormo 1y ago
        > You don’t see a reliability difference between a self-moderating and unmoderated system? I don't see there being a distinction between the two in the real world. An institutional system's behavior largely determined by the incentive structures that actually exist on the ground, irrespective of initial intentions or de jure rules. An institutional system that is expected to self-moderate is one where the motivations that inform its primary behavior are the same ones ultimately informing its self-moderation -- i.e. it's functionally equivalent to an unmoderated system, just more pretextual rationalization. > Do you see any value in QC? Sure. But I don't see much value in a QC process that's administered by the same people or judged against the same metrics as the thing it's QCing. I'd love the equivalent of QC to be applied to both legislation and administrative rule-making in our current system. Maybe with the Loper Bright decision, the courts will gradually resume responsibility for doing this properly. But the capricious and arbitrary nature of the current administration is revealing the extent to which checks and balances are already eroded, and just what an uphill battle that's likely to be. The entire political system in its current state is riddled with perverse incentives, and the mechanisms of external accountability are totally broken. Even with inter-branch checks and balances, the federal government in its current form is simply not trustworthy.
- citizenpaul 1y ago
  I don't think there has ever been a perfect time but I also think there has been an ever increasing weakness in the governments desire/ability to enforce regulation roughly since that time period. I mean the reconstitution of AT&T was one of the IMO the biggest middle fingers to the public I've seen. It was broken up because it was a bad actor and now its back again as a worse than ever bad actor. That was kind my wake up call. I'm sure there is worse though that I don't remember because it was not tech related. I could be wrong I'm not a huge politics person. Either way I don't think any response to me invalidates my opinion that the current government would not do a better job than cloudflare currently is.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago

Can't believe if you are joking or not. I trust a corporation more than I trust the nation you want it nationalized in (America?) EU maybe. But yes I don't want cloudflare to be part of america after patriotic acts and all the dystopia. Honestly, cloudflare is not so vital to the internet. Like, The only thing its gonna be a problem if they stop working without giving any way to migrate. Then yes, its gonna be a bit of problem to the internet.

encom 1y ago
>cloudflare is not so vital to the internet Really? Try distrusting CF certs, and see how much of your internet activity breaks. CF certs should be distrusted, because it's MITM by definition. At the very least, I'd like an addon that makes the URL bar bright red, so I know my connection isn't secure.
- swiftcoder 1y ago
  It's not more vital, than, say, AWS. Blocking AWS certs/endpoints will break your internet too. Though arguably neither should be in a position to do so without being regulate as a public utility
  - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
    Yup, I also meant the same when I was writing my comment and although I agree about regulation, the thing is, that I don't even trust that aspect... Also, I know that there are sometimes where cloudflare sits in the middle between your servers and your users for DDOS protection, and so yes theoretically its a point of interception but given how their whole thing is security, I doubt that they would exploit it but yes its a point of concern. On the other hand, if something like this does happen, migrating can be easier or on the same level if something like this happened on like AWS. But cloudflare still feels safer than AWS y'know? That being said, I am all in for some regulations as a public utility but not nationalizing it as the GP comment suggested. Just some regulations would be nice but honestly we are in a bit of tough spot and maybe it was the necessity of the internet to have something like cloudflare to prevent DDOS's.

Gormo 1y ago

To make sure I understand, your position is that anything vitally important to the internet should not be under the control of a plurality of institutions subject to heterogenous incentive structures, but instead should be under the centralized, monopolistic control of a single institution that is perpetually compromised by perverse incentives and ulterior motives, whose mechanisms of accountability are mostly performative and demonstrably broken? I'm not sure that sounds like a good idea, if that's what you're saying.

azemetre 1y ago
My position is that if something becomes critical it should be under democratic constraints in a democratic society and not private enterprises that have no forms of control by the populace. Maybe if Cloudflare had workplace democracy my concerns would be different, but they don't and wield too much power. If it also helps I also think 99.99% of big tech should be broken up into separate, probably a few 100, different companies. So yes, anything vital for the internet should be controlled by the people through democratic norms, institutions, and values rather than dictatorships by those with money over those with none.
- Gormo 1y ago
  No such thing as "democratic constraints" or "democratic society" at the level you're discussing. Democracy is an imperfect safeguard against certain types of extreme dysfunction of the political system -- a necessary one for sure, but not nearly sufficient to make the institutions it applies to trustworthy with monopolistic control over other aspects of society. Everything reduces to specific people acting on their a priori motivations in bounded contexts, and any system of centralized control is guaranteed to enable expressions of the worst motivations of the people involved. The distinctions you're making -- "private" vs. "public", "corporations" vs. "governments", etc. -- are fundamentally meaningless. There are no "democratic norms", just norms adhered to by specific people and the factions they form, contesting against each other for power over others. Performative "democracy" is often just cover to allow the currently dominant factions to function as "dictatorships". Decentralization and individual autonomy are the only solution to the problems you rightly care about, but what you're proposing is literally the opposite of that.