3 ms·

What's the cost for someone to put their blog behind cloudflare, besides a few minutes of setup?

by hrimfaxi 11mo ago

blibble 11mo ago
they (and whoever they have hiding in the shadows behind them) can intercept or directly man-in-the-middle attack anything you or your customers do less reliable (more hops -> less reliable) dependence on the US regime
superkuh 11mo ago
Well, if you do that than human people like myself won't be able to load your blog behind cloudflare for as long as it's behind cloudflare. A much longer and more insidious denial of service targeted to those who cloudflare doesn't think are profitable.
sph 11mo ago
What’s the cost of making the internet more centralised because of sheer laziness?
- cortesoft 11mo ago
  Do you think a world where all the commercial websites are centralized, but personal blogs are not, is that different than a world where blogs are also centralized? What is the benefit to having small blogs be decentralized?
  - wat10000 11mo ago
    If everything is centralized then nobody can discuss topics that have been decided to be off limits by the moderation teams at a few large companies.
    - cortesoft 11mo ago
      If cloudflare decides they don’t want to be your CDN, you could just move off of cloudflare, and be in the same situation you would be in if you never used them. You aren’t locked in.
      - grayhatter 11mo ago
        > You aren’t locked in. Did you consider and discard the eventuality that all the other ISP have gone out of business because everyone just uses cloudflare? Invasive species destroy ecosystems.
        cortesoft 11mo ago
        I am suggesting you host your website on your own server somewhere, and then you put it behind cloudflare. You still have your own host, just the same as you would without cloudflare. You are still providing your non-cloudflare host with the same revenue you would if you didn't use cloudflare, so I am not sure how that would hurt the ecosystem. The 'Invasive species destroy ecosystems' quote sounds good, but what exactly does it mean in this case? What is the species, and what is it invading?
        grayhatter 11mo ago
        > I am suggesting you host your website on your own server somewhere, and then you put it behind cloudflare I'd rather advocate for a solution that doesn't induce centralization. Because that still does. It's a weird suggestion to pay twice. I'm assuming in your hypothetical, cloudflare not only doesn't ever go down, but also absorbs only malicious traffic, and not any organic? Why should cloudflare do that and not my primary host? I'll assume I have XX to spend on hosting, you don't see how if I have to also allocate some of that to cloudflare, in addition to the real host, how that might limit what the real host can charge? If the real host can't charge enough to fund R&D on services like basic DDoS or other traffic shaping, wouldnt that mean I've then become dependent on cloudflare? And now hey cloudflare has other service, and I don't like the extra overhead of paying multiple services... I'll just move everything to cloudflare because they're bigger and do both... and now the small host is gone. sigh > The 'Invasive species destroy ecosystems' quote sounds good, but what exactly does it mean in this case? What is the species, and what is it invading? I'm comparing cloudflare to any species that enters an existing system that has developed a natural ecological balance that includes diversity. Which then proceeds to grow for the sake of growth, consuming resourcs at an unsustainable rate; destroying the diversity that previously existed. Destroying that diversity is bad because that diversity is what gives the system as a whole resistance to catastrophic events. Like huge parts of the Internet going down because someone wanted to ship their project before the holidays, in time for their perf review. The argument being: we should view cloudflare's growth, and consumption and takeover of the resources of the Internet as a whole, similar to the way we view other invasive species. It destroys the good parts of an existing system in a way that is almost impossible to recover from. Resulting in a much more fragile system. One than's now vulnerable to single events that take down "everything". A healthy system would be able to absorb such an event without destabilizing the whole thing. The invasive species is cloudflare, and it's consuming and replacing large existing sections of the Internet; which gains much of it's strength and resilience from it being distributed amongst it's peers.
    - huijzer 11mo ago
      > If everything is centralized then nobody can discuss topics that have been decided to be off limits by the moderation teams at a few large companies. Nice, you root caused it too. I couldn't agree more.
- jajuuka 11mo ago
  The famously decentralized internet. AWS, Azure, CloudFlare, or sea cables getting damaged never impact service. Right? /s
- hrimfaxi 11mo ago
  Do you think most people who want to start a blog are thinking about the centralization of internet services?
  - sph 11mo ago
    Do I think people who want to do X should have some modicum of morals? Yes I do, but I can't fully blame them when ethics is not taught in most schools, least of all computer sciences. First, let's stop perpetuating this destructive meme that running nginx on a VPS is rocket science, and fraught with peril; at least not on a forum of so-called hackers.
  - swiftcoder 11mo ago
    The people starting a tech blog damn well should be
loloquwowndueo 11mo ago
Remember if it costs nothing, you’re the product.
- terminalshort 11mo ago
  This isn't true for paid services with a free tier
  - grayhatter 11mo ago
    Nah, the cliche still applies there as well.
    - terminalshort 11mo ago
      No it really doesn't. How are you the product when Cloudflare gives you free tier access? That's not their business model. You aren't the product, but you are an upsell lead for the sales team.
      - grayhatter 11mo ago
        Sales teams don't pay for leads? If you keep me around, exclusively because the sales team wants to show me something... I'm the product. Follow up question, if I actually start using the DDoS protection or other services... will cloudflare cut me off unless I pay? Will that charge be exorbitant? Does that behavior feel like extortion? Have they done that before?
        terminalshort 11mo ago
        If the Cloudflare free tier TOS allows them to sell your data then I would agree that "you are the product". IDK if it does, but I would put my money on no. I have only used CF at the enterprise level so IDK if DDoS protection is free tier. Surprise billing like that is bad behavior, but it's not "you are the product" behavior.
wat10000 11mo ago
Increased downtime due to having an additional component in the loop, having my readers presented with captcha nonsense because the CDN doesn't like their IP address, potentially being taken offline because a giant corporation decides that it doesn't like the content I post or doesn't want to support my use case on their free tier anymore.
jszymborski 11mo ago
The posted article which you are commenting on is entirely about why you shouldn't...
- hrimfaxi 11mo ago
  It doesn't address the comment to which I was replying.
amatecha 11mo ago
Many users not being able to access it simply because of their choice of OS or browser. I regularly can't access websites on my OpenBSD machines running Firefox with "strict" privacy settings, or "resist fingerprinting" enabled. CloudFlare has decided my browser is suspicious :) I can switch to another machine (or even just another browser with more permissive settings) and it lets me through.
mobilemidget 11mo ago
It's not a matter of time. And i dont want cloudflare to track me across many different sites, nor my website visitors.

What's the cost for someone to put their blog behind cloudflare, besides a few minutes of setup?

they (and whoever they have hiding in the shadows behind them) can intercept or directly man-in-the-middle attack anything you or your customers do less reliable (more hops -> less reliable) dependence on the US regime

superkuh 11mo ago

Well, if you do that than human people like myself won't be able to load your blog behind cloudflare for as long as it's behind cloudflare. A much longer and more insidious denial of service targeted to those who cloudflare doesn't think are profitable.

sph 11mo ago

What’s the cost of making the internet more centralised because of sheer laziness?

cortesoft 11mo ago
Do you think a world where all the commercial websites are centralized, but personal blogs are not, is that different than a world where blogs are also centralized? What is the benefit to having small blogs be decentralized?
- wat10000 11mo ago
  If everything is centralized then nobody can discuss topics that have been decided to be off limits by the moderation teams at a few large companies.
  - cortesoft 11mo ago
    If cloudflare decides they don’t want to be your CDN, you could just move off of cloudflare, and be in the same situation you would be in if you never used them. You aren’t locked in.
    - grayhatter 11mo ago
      > You aren’t locked in. Did you consider and discard the eventuality that all the other ISP have gone out of business because everyone just uses cloudflare? Invasive species destroy ecosystems.
      - cortesoft 11mo ago
        I am suggesting you host your website on your own server somewhere, and then you put it behind cloudflare. You still have your own host, just the same as you would without cloudflare. You are still providing your non-cloudflare host with the same revenue you would if you didn't use cloudflare, so I am not sure how that would hurt the ecosystem. The 'Invasive species destroy ecosystems' quote sounds good, but what exactly does it mean in this case? What is the species, and what is it invading?
        grayhatter 11mo ago
        > I am suggesting you host your website on your own server somewhere, and then you put it behind cloudflare I'd rather advocate for a solution that doesn't induce centralization. Because that still does. It's a weird suggestion to pay twice. I'm assuming in your hypothetical, cloudflare not only doesn't ever go down, but also absorbs only malicious traffic, and not any organic? Why should cloudflare do that and not my primary host? I'll assume I have XX to spend on hosting, you don't see how if I have to also allocate some of that to cloudflare, in addition to the real host, how that might limit what the real host can charge? If the real host can't charge enough to fund R&D on services like basic DDoS or other traffic shaping, wouldnt that mean I've then become dependent on cloudflare? And now hey cloudflare has other service, and I don't like the extra overhead of paying multiple services... I'll just move everything to cloudflare because they're bigger and do both... and now the small host is gone. sigh > The 'Invasive species destroy ecosystems' quote sounds good, but what exactly does it mean in this case? What is the species, and what is it invading? I'm comparing cloudflare to any species that enters an existing system that has developed a natural ecological balance that includes diversity. Which then proceeds to grow for the sake of growth, consuming resourcs at an unsustainable rate; destroying the diversity that previously existed. Destroying that diversity is bad because that diversity is what gives the system as a whole resistance to catastrophic events. Like huge parts of the Internet going down because someone wanted to ship their project before the holidays, in time for their perf review. The argument being: we should view cloudflare's growth, and consumption and takeover of the resources of the Internet as a whole, similar to the way we view other invasive species. It destroys the good parts of an existing system in a way that is almost impossible to recover from. Resulting in a much more fragile system. One than's now vulnerable to single events that take down "everything". A healthy system would be able to absorb such an event without destabilizing the whole thing. The invasive species is cloudflare, and it's consuming and replacing large existing sections of the Internet; which gains much of it's strength and resilience from it being distributed amongst it's peers.
  - huijzer 11mo ago
    > If everything is centralized then nobody can discuss topics that have been decided to be off limits by the moderation teams at a few large companies. Nice, you root caused it too. I couldn't agree more.
jajuuka 11mo ago
The famously decentralized internet. AWS, Azure, CloudFlare, or sea cables getting damaged never impact service. Right? /s
hrimfaxi 11mo ago
Do you think most people who want to start a blog are thinking about the centralization of internet services?
- sph 11mo ago
  Do I think people who want to do X should have some modicum of morals? Yes I do, but I can't fully blame them when ethics is not taught in most schools, least of all computer sciences. First, let's stop perpetuating this destructive meme that running nginx on a VPS is rocket science, and fraught with peril; at least not on a forum of so-called hackers.
- swiftcoder 11mo ago
  The people starting a tech blog damn well should be

loloquwowndueo 11mo ago

Remember if it costs nothing, you’re the product.

terminalshort 11mo ago
This isn't true for paid services with a free tier
- grayhatter 11mo ago
  Nah, the cliche still applies there as well.
  - terminalshort 11mo ago
    No it really doesn't. How are you the product when Cloudflare gives you free tier access? That's not their business model. You aren't the product, but you are an upsell lead for the sales team.
    - grayhatter 11mo ago
      Sales teams don't pay for leads? If you keep me around, exclusively because the sales team wants to show me something... I'm the product. Follow up question, if I actually start using the DDoS protection or other services... will cloudflare cut me off unless I pay? Will that charge be exorbitant? Does that behavior feel like extortion? Have they done that before?
      - terminalshort 11mo ago
        If the Cloudflare free tier TOS allows them to sell your data then I would agree that "you are the product". IDK if it does, but I would put my money on no. I have only used CF at the enterprise level so IDK if DDoS protection is free tier. Surprise billing like that is bad behavior, but it's not "you are the product" behavior.

wat10000 11mo ago

Increased downtime due to having an additional component in the loop, having my readers presented with captcha nonsense because the CDN doesn't like their IP address, potentially being taken offline because a giant corporation decides that it doesn't like the content I post or doesn't want to support my use case on their free tier anymore.

jszymborski 11mo ago

The posted article which you are commenting on is entirely about why you shouldn't...

hrimfaxi 11mo ago
It doesn't address the comment to which I was replying.

amatecha 11mo ago

Many users not being able to access it simply because of their choice of OS or browser. I regularly can't access websites on my OpenBSD machines running Firefox with "strict" privacy settings, or "resist fingerprinting" enabled. CloudFlare has decided my browser is suspicious :) I can switch to another machine (or even just another browser with more permissive settings) and it lets me through.

mobilemidget 11mo ago

It's not a matter of time. And i dont want cloudflare to track me across many different sites, nor my website visitors.