I just repost the same comment I put in the above thread
> The thing that scary me most is that his business get shut down without any notice period (at least the author not mentioning any previous communications from Cloudflare team about the issue).
> This is really a shitty thing from Cloudflare, you cannot shut down an already running business without any notice/grace period.
I don’t really feel any sympathy for that poster. They knowingly broke the rules, they had to have known that CF could come and shut them down at any time, and they still went ahead and threw the pity party knowing that they are pretty much entirely in the wrong. It’s very much a “play dumb games, win dumb prizes”.
Would it be nice for CF to give a heads up? Sure. But I don’t think it’s required, and especially not in an egregious case like that one.
I think that case is different than this one because it was very obvious that it was against the rules, to the point where even the OP of that post came in to say that yes, they knowingly violated the TOS but would have appreciated a heads up.
The comment I was referring to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34235749
Sorry for the confusion, I tried to separate using “this post” and “that post” but I’m sure I slipped up somewhere there.
They "tolerated" a non-compliant use of their service for so long time (maybe because in the past their only goal was to increase adoption?!?) and suddenly they decided to change strategy?! No problem, it's their choice, but adding an x days grace period should be the standard. It's really easy to do.
> Would it be nice for CF to give a heads up?
Well yes, it will be really welcome. Mostly for all other their user(1/3 of internet or something like this) that maybe doesn't even know there are not full-compliant to TOS and risk their business to be terminated suddenly.
Warnings are nice, but it's ultimately the user's responsibility to read and understand the TOS, what they can and can't do. Ignorance is no defense. Just because you didn't know murder is illegal does not mean you can go kill random people and claim "oopsie, I didn't know, I wish you had warned me ahead of time".
> suddenly they decided to change strategy
They never changed strategy. It has always been explicitly against the TOS and explicitly mentioned as something you can't do in their documentation. Just because someone is below the threshold for Cloudflare's automated detection does not mean CF is allowing their use. Their use is still against the terms they agreed to, it's just not detected yet. If you are doing things you know are against the TOS, like that other poster, then you should very well know that your time is limited and your access can be yanked at any point in time.
It is actually ultimately the responsibility of the company, cloudflare, to clearly communicate their rules and ToS to the users. Because they are the multi-billion dollar business, and making things clear is their responsibility.
Throwing your hands up, and blaming confusion on the user is a way to rightfully cause users to hate you, and rightfully cause you a large amount of monetary damage as people decide that your company is not worth the risk.
Or even more, a user is within their right to cause large amount of monetary damages to the company, via viral social media outrages, such as this one. PR damage is real, and is a totally valid tactic, that a large company deserves, if they are making mistakes like this.
And it seemed like the damage caused by this post was very real. Cloudflare executives are posting in this thread.
So, actually, I would say that it is not just nice, but obligated to provide warnings, elsewise you get a situation like this, which is causing real damage to the company.
I mean, it was clear enough for the other OP to know they went against it. They didn’t need to be told, they already knew their usage was against the TOS and just didn’t like that Cloudflare decided to enforce the rule they very well knew they were already breaking. They even said it themselves.
I already even said that is why I don’t agree the issues are in any way the same, but you opted to ignore that and continue down your diatribe of “it’s always the company’s fault”.
> Throwing your hands up, and blaming confusion on the user is a way to rightfully cause users to hate you, and rightfully cause you a large amount of monetary damage as people decide that your company is not worth the risk.
TIL that users are just allowed to do whatever they want with no repercussions because it’s too difficult to read the agreement they signed. The one that tells them what they’re explicitly not allowed to do. But no, definitely the company’s fault that a customer was taking advantage of them and their services. Totally.
> Cloudflare executives are posting in this thread.
So? People post here all the time. “HackerNews support” is a trope at this point and says nothing but that executives want to do damage control. It says nothing about the TOS being clear on the issue.
It's a wrong comparison. I'm not saying that people that are abusing CF's services are not guilty.
> I mean, it was clear enough for the other OP to know they went against it.
The point is not about these specific cases(in the one I posted it's definitely user's fault, this one is more ambiguous) but how CF acts.
The automatic/human process inside CF that decided to "ban" doesn't know if users are aware or not. They just assume (as you) that's user's fault and proceed with the "ban". While, if I'm running a service for months or even years and no one complains, there are a lot of good reason to assume that I don't do anything wrong.
Imagine that you have a totally compliant service but, because of a bug in their detection mechanism, your service goes down, and it takes days or even weeks to clarify everything with them and bring it up again.
It's an insane "default".
I mean, for CF nothing changes if they give you an x days notice but for your business changes a lot and (as mentioned before) when you run 1/3 of internet it's not only about the TOS.
> I mean, it was clear enough for the other OP to know they went against it. They didn’t need to be told, they already knew their usage was against the TOS and just didn’t like that Cloudflare decided to enforce the rule they very well knew they were already breaking. They even said it themselves.
It's evidently clear. Did you even read the thread we’re talking about? Like even remotely? Or are you continuing on the same diatribe regardless what was clearly already written?
> I am not saying I am right. I did break the TOS. They have the right to do what they did. It's just not nice and I don't like them anymore :)
This is not a person who was confused. Period.
That you chose to discard them is on you. But that doesn’t mean they just magically don’t exist.
Here’s a gold star, champ.
Once again, whatever you want to believe to help you sleep at night.