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by mindslight 1341 days ago
Actually you're missing the point. It doesn't seem like many people are condemning Cloudflare for not serving a bandwidth-heavy file for free (FTA: "CloudFlare does not allow non-enterprise users use that much traffic").

Rather what's being condemned is this nonsense customer service characterization of a text file as somehow not "web content". Easylist.txt is a data file that could just as easily be in JSON (and be larger). Furthermore, as it stands easylist.txt actually looks like it's a valid text/html file, as browsers generally don't insist on <html>/<body> tags. So from both directions it seems like the customer service drone has thrown out this nonsense just to short circuit having to do their job.
2 comments
r3trohack3r 1341 days ago
I like the HN approach of taking a charitable interpretation of their message.

Clearly EasyList lived on their free tier for a long time without interruption. Only when they used excessive bandwidth did ToS enforcement happen. When they reached out for support, the support agent rightly pointed out that this isn't a website file.

Reading the ToS, the support agents message appears to be correct. Text files are fine (as is pretty much any format) as long as it isn't the main focus of the HTTP server Cloudflare is fronting. Robots.txt would be fine, turning the list into XML or HTML would not be fine. In this case, the text file isn't there to support the web content of Easy List - it's distributing a text file to applications.

The agent could have added additional context but their message is valid.

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mindslight 1341 days ago
You're still conflating "free tier" with "not a web file". According to the article, they are separate issues and Cloudflare wouldn't be willing to host easylist.txt even on a paid plan.

Meanwhile -

1. easylist.txt is used by every single web page I visit. So the overall purpose argument fails.

2. Web pages commonly use non-directly-renderable data files in formats like JSON or XML, so the file purpose argument fails.

3. Text files are and continue to be one of the major formats displayed by browsers. So the file type argument fails.

4. The size of the file is in line with other files cached by Cloudflare. So that argument fails.

If the Cloudflare support rep said "we just don't feel like doing business with you", that would be a different thing. But instead they're throwing out some arbitrarily-framed unfalsifiable reason as if it's a logical justification. And no, customer service drones and corporate policies don't deserve a fundamental benefit of the doubt, per contra proferentem (ambiguous terms should be construed against the drafter). It's impossible to know what they actually mean here besides "we don't like it", and that is the problem.

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manigandham 1341 days ago
But it's not JSON or HTML. And it's not meant for browsers. It's clearly a dataset as a text file and not meant as "web(page) content". What's nonsense about that when it's completely accurate?
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thayne 1341 days ago
How is it any different from a json file used by a web app (or mobile app, or desktop app)?

And there is no reason a web app couldn't read data from a txt file instead of a json file.

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manigandham 1341 days ago
It's not for displaying a webpage but to power a separate application. Just because you can serve any kind of file over HTTP doesn't mean it's for serving a website. There's a reason Cloudflare doesn't allow large video files either - even though that probably counts even more as "web content".

This is a very straightforward interpretation of the terms and it's strange to see such pushback based on a pedantic technicality when it's clear what the file is being used for.

In fact, if this was the opposite situation and some automated rule was involved in isolating this file, I expect the same people would then want human intervention to clear up the difference based on the context.

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yellowapple 1341 days ago
> There's a reason Cloudflare doesn't allow large video files either - even though that probably counts even more as "web content".

And that's just as nonsensical. Bytes are bytes; the rationale should be based on bandwidth, not on arbitrary micromanagement of the format of the data consuming that bandwidth. If I encode that video in a giant self-contained blob of JavaScript that feeds the pixels into a canvas or something similarly ridiculous, does that magically fix the bandwidth issues?

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manigandham 1341 days ago
No. It is about excessive resources/bandwidth usage. The customer service response reply isn't great but the context itself is clear because this file is clearly not for displaying any part of the web presence of the easylist site.

Again this is that "pedantic technicality" - why such a fuss when the actual issue is straightforward, and also clearly understood and reiterated by the easylist team themselves in the post?

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yellowapple 1341 days ago
> It is about excessive resources/bandwidth usage.

Then the policy would focus on that rather than micromanage the format of the data using those resources/bandwidth. Again: bytes are bytes.

> why such a fuss

Because a policy as nonsensical as "no non-HTML files allowed" artificially limits the usefulness of CloudFlare for precisely zero legitimate reason. I ask again: does wrapping a video in a blob of JavaScript fix the bandwidth issues associated with hosting videos? If I have a 10MB MP3 downloaded 1,000 times v. a 1MB HTML/CSS/JS static site downloaded 10,000 times, what difference does it make?

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LawTalkingGuy 1341 days ago
So the solution is to HTML the list and link it from the webpage?

> why such a fuss

Mockery isn't a fuss. And why? Because we can all picture having to deal with just this sort of idiot and their pet rule.

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Spunkie 1341 days ago
> It's not for displaying a webpage

The majority of of legitimate traffic to these txt files are by browsers(extensions) for the express purpose of displaying websites to a users specifications(without ads in this case).

A reasonably low estimate is that 20%-30% of global internet users are behind some kind of adblocker, almost all of which are default subscribed to easylists. So this txt file is potentially responsible for the way a BILLION+ internet users see and interact with near every single website.

Cloudflares claim that this isn't web content is full on reality warping. It only makes any kind of sense when masked under layers of abstractions and lawyer speak.

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None this should even matter though, someone seeing the big picture at CF should have done the napkin math and realized that the easylist bandwidth pays for itself.

Ignoring the soft cushion of the huge amount of globally distributed caching of these files, if easylist suddenly stopped working for a week then global bandwidth usage could see a spike. A pretty little chunk of which CF may be on the hook to absorb at no cost.

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thayne 1341 days ago
But the support email didn't say it was a violation of the ToS because it is primarily used by non webpage applications (the ToS does say APIs may be allowed, but doesn't have specific details on when afaict), it says it is a violation because it is a txt file, and there is a txt couldn't be a part of a website. And in fact robots.txt and security.txt are standard and common txt files serves as part of websites. In the case if robots.txt it also is primarily consumed by web crawlers, not for actually rendering web pages. Does that mean robots.txt violates the ToS too?
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yellowapple 1341 days ago
> And it's not meant for browsers.

It literally is - specifically, for extensions thereof.

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3np 1341 days ago
oh it's for browsers all right
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