[dbttdft]

You're both wrong. Cloudflare is breaking the internet by doing interactive verification of users, meaning the web is no longer an open protocol. I'm referring to that "enable javascript" page and "one more step" page. They require you to have Firefox or Chrome, neither of which are acceptable, which they verify with scripts and deep packet inspection. Contrast this to old school communication protocols which I could implement in an hour. I can't implement a Firefox in 100 years. Firefox can't even run on 95% of my machines, it just lags to hell once you open two tabs. And I need as many instances of Firefox as possible across many boxes to prevent being data mined. Cloudflare is the nail in the coffin for the web, they just not have advanced that far yet. Just wait until "something happens" and Cloudflare ups their policing.

[scubbo]

> I'm referring to that "enable javascript" page and "one more step" page.

Sorry, I have no idea to what you're referring.

But even if that is the case _for sites that are behind Cloudflare CDN_ - that still doesn't invalidate my point that Cloudflare _itself_ does not make the web decentralized. A lot of traffic _happens_ to go through it right now - but if it does "up its policing" in a way which is unacceptable, it is trivial for hosts to migrate away from behind it, in a way which is _not_ the case when 1. your content is irretrievable from the provider, 2. your social network is unmigratable, or 3. your product is built in provider-specific language/tooling.

EDIT: a sibling comment[0] helped me realize that what I'm describing is more like "lock-in-iness" than "centralization". Fair. Though - a "gatekeeper" from whom migration costs are very cheap worries me far less.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39687477

[dbttdft]

You're wrong because you're just saying Cloudflare is making the web more centralized. The web is centralized by design and a defective technology. It costs money to host text files (and for no reason, see Bit Torrent for a counter example (and don't talk to me about unseeded content because you could literally just seed your website if you care about it so it would be no different than current web)).

[scubbo]

> The web is centralized by design and a defective technology

Astonishing claims require astonishing proof :)

[dbttdft]

The more viewers your website gets the more money it needs for hosting (unlike proper ways of serving documents, like Torrent), this naturally leads to centralization. The more americunts browse your site the more likely it needs lawyers and since you are now a business (which you shouldn't be because websites for profit are garbage), you have to act "responsibly", like a business. The more you publish stuff that goes against the grain the more your site will be DDoSed. Today even just not being polite is enough to get DDoSed by some kind of blue haired "anarchist". I mean this literally, not in some nazi way - merely writing the Spanish word for black regardless of context is enough for DDoS. You need professional publishers to imagine every single problematic thing you could write if you want your blog today to have a mere 1 million viewers. The more you do anything what so ever the more your website is pushed around and eventually has no choice but to go with some big enterprise data centers who has their own stupid rules like Cloudflare who blocks every second user for their broken firewall and constantly insists they are right.

[reactordev]

Only for sites that use Cloudflare. There’s a huge portion of the web that doesn’t.