[o-__-o]

So for my startup to crawl sites I must now adhere to Cloudflare’s Requirements of the Web(TM) or reach out to individual engineer, who may leave at any moment. Gotcha

(but Google is allowed because Google was first to market)

[midev]

Why would you possibly think you can do whatever you want to someone else's site?

Yes, you must adhere to the controls that site administrators put in place, like Cloudflare.... You don't get to blast my site with requests, just because you want to...

[o-__-o]

(a) Who said I was blasting your site with requests? Cloudflare stops much more than just blasts

(b) But you’re a-ok with Google doing this. Gated communities aren’t really good for anybody but I see what you are saying.

[midev]

Gated communities are great. They lower the risk of crime significantly: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130320115113.h...

The same is true online. Apple's walled garden has kept hundreds of millions of people safe on their device. It's why iOS malware isn't a thing.

> Cloudflare stops much more than just blasts

Exactly. There's even more benefit to Cloudflare than just DDoS. Captcha's for stopping credential stuffing, for example.

[o-__-o]

..Didn’t realize my startup search engine stuffed credentials :(

But hey if I pay Cloudflare enough, then I’ll get to blast your site and possibly stuff creds at the same time :/