[NicoJuicy]

I don't know/think there is a hidden angle.

Eg. What could be the hidden angle of providing domains at cost ( which they do).

I think it's a matter of having a more complete cloud suite and expanding their portfolio while gaining market share.

Clarification: I don't think they do this at cost. Just cheaper than the big 3.

[abhv]

I suspect the story is a bit more complicated.

They seem to learn a lot by centralizing a lot of the internet's traffic through their core. Perhaps it makes their ddos-protection more robust when they can train on "what normal usage" looks like "for the longer tail".

Perhaps they are building moats around that business and expecting a future when Fortune1000 requires their cdn.

[NicoJuicy]

I don't think that's correct.

Their CDN is based on their SDN. Which is also at the core of all their products, including DDOS protection.

Their primary product is the SDN and a CDN was a logical pick as first product "release".

Eg. You shouldn't consider their products in "regions" as traditional cloud providers. In cloudflare it's programmable, not configurable.