5 ms·

> The NUCLEAR threat regarding the 2026 Winter Olympics (Milano-Cortina) is the real leverage here. He’s bypassing the regulator and putting a gun to the govern

by ta9000 9mo ago

> The NUCLEAR threat regarding the 2026 Winter Olympics (Milano-Cortina) is the real leverage here. He’s bypassing the regulator and putting a gun to the government’s head regarding national prestige and infrastructure security. Kind of wild that a private company has that kind of power, both in terms of being one of the few that can offer this service and they can make threats at this level.

retr0rocket 9mo ago
[dead]
asa400 9mo ago
This is one of the consequences of outsourcing this (and other capabilities) to the private sector. Many governments simply don’t have the skill and political will to invest in these kinds of capabilities, which puts them at the mercy of private actors that do. Not saying this is good or bad, just trying to describe it as I see it.
- miki123211 9mo ago
  Governments just can't come to grips with how much money software engineers make. Paying a contractor $x million? Yeah no problem, projects are projects, they cost what they cost. Does that $x million pay for 5x fewer people than it would in construction or road repair? We don't know, we don't care, this is the best bid we got for the requirements, and in line with what similar IT projects cost us before. Paying a junior employee $100k? "We can't do that, the agency director has worked here for 40 years, and he doesn't make that much." Variants of this story exist in practically every single country. You can make it work with lower salaries through patriotism, but software engineers in general are one of the less patriotic professions out there, so this isn't too easy to do.
  - tsimionescu 9mo ago
    > Paying a junior employee $100k? "We can't do that, the agency director has worked here for 40 years, and he doesn't make that much." I can assure you that junior software engineers in Italy or anywhere else in the EU make nowhere near that amount of money. In fact, few of even the most senior software engineers make that amount of money anywhere in the EU (in Switzerland or the UK they might see such salaries, at the higher tiers).
    - Nextgrid 9mo ago
      And they get exactly what they pay for. There's zero reason for a competent professional to stick around with that kind of pay any longer than strictly necessary (aka until their own gig or freelancing takes off).
      - angry_octet 9mo ago
        Many people don't want to live in America. I know that if you're American that sounds crazy.
    - miki123211 9mo ago
      The figures I gave were in-line with the US (as that's what most of this audience understands), but if you scale everything by a certain factor, the entire principle holds basically anywhere.
      - tsimionescu 9mo ago
        Not really. US programming salaries are much higher than most other engineering and specialist positions, which makes it harder for the government to hire good programmers. However, programming salaries here in the EU are much more in line with other specialist salaries, which the government already hires many of. So there is no significant problem in hiring programmers at competitive rates for government work. The bigger problem, and the reason this doesn't usually happen, is just ideological opposition to state services, preferring to contract out this type of work instead of building IT infrastructure in-house.
    - alberto-m 9mo ago
      > in Switzerland they might see such salaries, at the higher tiers Putting UK and Switzerland in the same pot is wrong, the pay scales are totally different. 100k$ is 80k CHF which is entry level salary for a SWE. The difference between Switzerland and US is at senior level (reaching 160k CHF is much more difficult than reaching 200k$).
    - sehansen 9mo ago
  - debugnik 9mo ago
    > Paying a junior employee $100k? In Southern Europe? More like $30k gross.
  - Nextgrid 9mo ago
    Not just governments, that same kind of greed exists in private companies too. The only way to make good money while being an employee is to have your buddy spin up a "vendor" offering overpriced bullshit and shill it within your company. In exchange, you also spin up a "vendor" and your buddy shills it at his company.
    - Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
      This might explain why there are sooooooooo many vps providers/cloud providers, this might be one valid reason as to why. I am sure that this might not be the only reason but still, its a valid reason for many. Do you know of companies/people which do this and how widespread this practise is? To me it still feels like malicious compliance tho for what its worth.
      - Nextgrid 9mo ago
        I said this in jest as a reaction to what post-tax SWE salaries in Europe top out at, all while the same companies have no problem burning insane money on vendors. There is zero incentive to do good work as an employee as it won't be compensated anywhere near what even a shoddy vendor gets paid. But given the rise of many SaaSes selling exactly the same thing every full-stack web framework used to provide for free - think Auth0, Okta, etc, it may very well be happening.
gpm 9mo ago
I have to say I'm curious over whether that's actually leverage or a massively miscalculated threat that is just going to push the Italian population and politicians firmly against cloudflare. I'm pretty sure if you tried that here (Canada) it would do the latter.
- DangitBobby 9mo ago
  Would a regulating body in Canada do this, though? And if so, hopefully Cloudflare would say fuck you just the same as they did Italy. It's nice to see someone actually taking a principled stand for once.
  - gpm 9mo ago
    If our politicians were stupid enough to pass a law telling them to - I sure hope so - we live in a place with the rule of law not the rule of whatever Joe at the CRTC thinks should happen. Regulators exist to enforce the will of parliament... Would our politicians pass a law this unfortunate... I hope not... but I don't really have that much faith in them. The current government probably wouldn't, but governments change. Referencing the Trump administration - the people going around threatening, deporting, arresting, taking money from, etc people as a consequence for speech they don't like - as the standard for free speech makes this far from a principled stand by cloudflare. They took their moral high ground and sunk it. This isn't about speech for them, just money.
    - DangitBobby 9mo ago
      You're free to believe all that. "Rule of Law" loses all meaning when corruption takes root. We don't like that "for my friends, everything, for everyone else, the law" shit. Things can be morally wrong and still legal, and the law itself can intentionally enforce immorality. It's your civic duty to determine when upholding the law degrades you and every else more than following it does. Also I feel like threatening to take your toys and go home when they don't play fair is a totally valid response.
      - 9mo ago
isodev 9mo ago
> Kind of wild that a private company has that kind of power Also kind of wild that it’s a private US company pushing their current political views on another sovereign state. Cloudflare as a political tool of leverage is a level of dystopia we really should try not to unlock.
- johncolanduoni 9mo ago
  They're threatening to take their ball and go home. If they move all of their operations out of Italy, under what principle does Italy demand they block content globally? Should Wikipedia remove their page on Tiananmen Square because the Chinese government demands it (which they would, if they thought it would work)?
  - randomNumber7 9mo ago
    The Chinese are smart enough to realize how evil you look if you ask for s.th. like that.
- staplers 9mo ago
  a private US company pushing their current political views on another sovereign state This has always been the case in the western world, even before America itself existed. Some use the US govt (CIA) as leverage but often will just do it themselves.
- msh 9mo ago
  i think it’s quite normal and always have been normal for companies to leave countries when the regulative environment goes against them.
  - account42 9mo ago
    Most of them are not as brazen as putting "change your laws or here is how we will fuck you over" in a tweet.
- nl 9mo ago
  What are the exact political views the Cloudflare is pushing here? That it is unreasonable for Italian soccer rights owners to try to use Cloudflare to enforce their broadcast restrictions with 30 minutes notice? That it is unreasonable not to have a appeal right for these restrictions? That the technical solution demanded is technically infeasible? Not sure that these are political views at all.
jkman 9mo ago
How is revoking pro bono work you volunteered 'wild'? Should offering services lock you into indentured servitude?
- account42 9mo ago
  There is a difference of stopping a free service (for whatever reason) and threatening to stop a free service if the other party doesn't do what they want.

by ta9000 9mo ago

retr0rocket 9mo ago

[dead]

asa400 9mo ago

This is one of the consequences of outsourcing this (and other capabilities) to the private sector. Many governments simply don’t have the skill and political will to invest in these kinds of capabilities, which puts them at the mercy of private actors that do. Not saying this is good or bad, just trying to describe it as I see it.

miki123211 9mo ago
Governments just can't come to grips with how much money software engineers make. Paying a contractor $x million? Yeah no problem, projects are projects, they cost what they cost. Does that $x million pay for 5x fewer people than it would in construction or road repair? We don't know, we don't care, this is the best bid we got for the requirements, and in line with what similar IT projects cost us before. Paying a junior employee $100k? "We can't do that, the agency director has worked here for 40 years, and he doesn't make that much." Variants of this story exist in practically every single country. You can make it work with lower salaries through patriotism, but software engineers in general are one of the less patriotic professions out there, so this isn't too easy to do.
- tsimionescu 9mo ago
  > Paying a junior employee $100k? "We can't do that, the agency director has worked here for 40 years, and he doesn't make that much." I can assure you that junior software engineers in Italy or anywhere else in the EU make nowhere near that amount of money. In fact, few of even the most senior software engineers make that amount of money anywhere in the EU (in Switzerland or the UK they might see such salaries, at the higher tiers).
  - Nextgrid 9mo ago
    And they get exactly what they pay for. There's zero reason for a competent professional to stick around with that kind of pay any longer than strictly necessary (aka until their own gig or freelancing takes off).
    - angry_octet 9mo ago
      Many people don't want to live in America. I know that if you're American that sounds crazy.
  - miki123211 9mo ago
    The figures I gave were in-line with the US (as that's what most of this audience understands), but if you scale everything by a certain factor, the entire principle holds basically anywhere.
    - tsimionescu 9mo ago
      Not really. US programming salaries are much higher than most other engineering and specialist positions, which makes it harder for the government to hire good programmers. However, programming salaries here in the EU are much more in line with other specialist salaries, which the government already hires many of. So there is no significant problem in hiring programmers at competitive rates for government work. The bigger problem, and the reason this doesn't usually happen, is just ideological opposition to state services, preferring to contract out this type of work instead of building IT infrastructure in-house.
  - alberto-m 9mo ago
    > in Switzerland they might see such salaries, at the higher tiers Putting UK and Switzerland in the same pot is wrong, the pay scales are totally different. 100k$ is 80k CHF which is entry level salary for a SWE. The difference between Switzerland and US is at senior level (reaching 160k CHF is much more difficult than reaching 200k$).
  - sehansen 9mo ago
- debugnik 9mo ago
  > Paying a junior employee $100k? In Southern Europe? More like $30k gross.
- Nextgrid 9mo ago
  Not just governments, that same kind of greed exists in private companies too. The only way to make good money while being an employee is to have your buddy spin up a "vendor" offering overpriced bullshit and shill it within your company. In exchange, you also spin up a "vendor" and your buddy shills it at his company.
  - Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
    This might explain why there are sooooooooo many vps providers/cloud providers, this might be one valid reason as to why. I am sure that this might not be the only reason but still, its a valid reason for many. Do you know of companies/people which do this and how widespread this practise is? To me it still feels like malicious compliance tho for what its worth.
    - Nextgrid 9mo ago
      I said this in jest as a reaction to what post-tax SWE salaries in Europe top out at, all while the same companies have no problem burning insane money on vendors. There is zero incentive to do good work as an employee as it won't be compensated anywhere near what even a shoddy vendor gets paid. But given the rise of many SaaSes selling exactly the same thing every full-stack web framework used to provide for free - think Auth0, Okta, etc, it may very well be happening.

gpm 9mo ago

I have to say I'm curious over whether that's actually leverage or a massively miscalculated threat that is just going to push the Italian population and politicians firmly against cloudflare. I'm pretty sure if you tried that here (Canada) it would do the latter.

DangitBobby 9mo ago
Would a regulating body in Canada do this, though? And if so, hopefully Cloudflare would say fuck you just the same as they did Italy. It's nice to see someone actually taking a principled stand for once.
- gpm 9mo ago
  If our politicians were stupid enough to pass a law telling them to - I sure hope so - we live in a place with the rule of law not the rule of whatever Joe at the CRTC thinks should happen. Regulators exist to enforce the will of parliament... Would our politicians pass a law this unfortunate... I hope not... but I don't really have that much faith in them. The current government probably wouldn't, but governments change. Referencing the Trump administration - the people going around threatening, deporting, arresting, taking money from, etc people as a consequence for speech they don't like - as the standard for free speech makes this far from a principled stand by cloudflare. They took their moral high ground and sunk it. This isn't about speech for them, just money.
  - DangitBobby 9mo ago
    You're free to believe all that. "Rule of Law" loses all meaning when corruption takes root. We don't like that "for my friends, everything, for everyone else, the law" shit. Things can be morally wrong and still legal, and the law itself can intentionally enforce immorality. It's your civic duty to determine when upholding the law degrades you and every else more than following it does. Also I feel like threatening to take your toys and go home when they don't play fair is a totally valid response.
    - 9mo ago

isodev 9mo ago

> Kind of wild that a private company has that kind of power Also kind of wild that it’s a private US company pushing their current political views on another sovereign state. Cloudflare as a political tool of leverage is a level of dystopia we really should try not to unlock.

johncolanduoni 9mo ago
They're threatening to take their ball and go home. If they move all of their operations out of Italy, under what principle does Italy demand they block content globally? Should Wikipedia remove their page on Tiananmen Square because the Chinese government demands it (which they would, if they thought it would work)?
- randomNumber7 9mo ago
  The Chinese are smart enough to realize how evil you look if you ask for s.th. like that.
staplers 9mo ago
a private US company pushing their current political views on another sovereign state This has always been the case in the western world, even before America itself existed. Some use the US govt (CIA) as leverage but often will just do it themselves.
msh 9mo ago
i think it’s quite normal and always have been normal for companies to leave countries when the regulative environment goes against them.
- account42 9mo ago
  Most of them are not as brazen as putting "change your laws or here is how we will fuck you over" in a tweet.
nl 9mo ago
What are the exact political views the Cloudflare is pushing here? That it is unreasonable for Italian soccer rights owners to try to use Cloudflare to enforce their broadcast restrictions with 30 minutes notice? That it is unreasonable not to have a appeal right for these restrictions? That the technical solution demanded is technically infeasible? Not sure that these are political views at all.

jkman 9mo ago

How is revoking pro bono work you volunteered 'wild'? Should offering services lock you into indentured servitude?

account42 9mo ago
There is a difference of stopping a free service (for whatever reason) and threatening to stop a free service if the other party doesn't do what they want.