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Comment by dkjaudyeqooe | Hacker News Reader

You covered everything except the most important case: Cloudflare blocks innocent people trying to access websites protected by Cloudflare.

For instance they block me because I'm behind CGNAT and because some of the millions of machines also behind that CGNAT once did something unsavory.

I'm not a customer of Cloudflare, so I have no one to call, I just get blocked from endless websites or have to click a checkbox, solve puzzles and suffer other indignities because I'm using a reputable and popular ISP in my country.

Fuck Cloudflare. They're accelerating the utter shittiness of the web because of their indiscriminate solutions to web malfeasance, which are worse than the disease.

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I've experienced similar problems in the past. Cloudflare decides that something about the ISP or software I'm using is not on some secret approved list and we all get a bag of coal for Christmas instead of the content we were asking for until we've jumped through whatever hoops it decided to set up this week. And I've heard way too many anecdotes from way too many people in real life to believe this is some sort of isolated or unusual event.

If Cloudflare is now taking a hit because it's become collateral damage to an over-generalised penalty system despite having done nothing wrong itself then it is difficult to find much sympathy. If this blocking exposes how much of the web we all use every day is now being routed via a single point of failure that has been operating largely as a law unto itself then that also seems like a positive step to me.

If not for cloudflare, the site which you’re trying so hard to visit would probably not survive due to:

1. High genuine traffic

2. High bot traffic

3. Being DDoSed to death

Everyone else other than you get to enjoy a snappy and fast loading site. I think that’s a good trade off.

> Everyone else other than you get to enjoy a snappy and fast loading site. I think that’s a good trade off.

The core logic behind that sentence is that it's good to be in an unfair system, as long as you benefit from the system and don't get unfairly targeted.

Work camps are also a good thing, provided you're benefiting from the work rather than sent to the gulag.

> Everyone else other than you get to enjoy a snappy and fast loading site.

Why can't everyone else suffer? What makes me the loser besides prejudice?

I'm hardly unique, there are many people who share an external IP.

Maybe the point is don't screw one half of the population to benefit the other half.

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