[scarface74]

Really? So every company that has a free tier is “dumping”?

CloudFlare is not s monopoly even by HN commenters weird definition.

But if you define “dumping” as “selling a product below what it takes to turn a profit”, every unprofitable company funded by YC is doing something illegal.

[lmm]

> Really? So every company that has a free tier is “dumping”?

Offering a sustainable free tier isn't dumping. Funding a free service with profits from a different business is.

> But if you define “dumping” as “selling a product below what it takes to turn a profit”, every unprofitable company funded by YC is doing something illegal.

Some of them have sensible unit economics and just need investment while they scale up. But yes, intentionally or not there is absolutely a whole lot of antitrust violation going on in silicon valley VC.

[scarface74]

So what other product does CloudFlare have?

You really think a company can’t legally enter a new market by funding the division from another market?

Was Amazon engaging in “dumping” when it was using the revenue from Amazon to build out AWS? And no “AWS wasn’t started by Amazon selling excess capacity”

[lmm]

You can legally invest into a new business with revenue from your existing business. What's not legal is running a line of business in a way that's inherently unsustainable.

[scarface74]

So how is CloudFlare having a free tier not “sustainable” when that’s what almost every company does? Do you think the Google Pixel makes money selling only 800,000 phones a quarter? Would it be sustainable as a standalone company?

Is the “HomePod mini” a line of business? Would it be sustainable if it weren’t subsidized by the rest of Apple?

Are you starting to see how meaningless your definition is?

[parasubvert]

What? This is nonsense. You can absolutely run a line of business at a loss.