alt Hacker News> He phrases it to be as if the free tier is a favor Cloudflare does to the world, as if it's not obviously a loss-leader designed to get more people into the Cloudflare ecosystem.
It can be both. I run many open source websites behind cloudflare.
It's the same as github. All the free hosting and free CIs and free issues/discussion forums, and free code review for open source repos (90% of all open source projects?) happens to be a a loss leader as well.
Both are still a huge free contribution to the world. They don't have to do it. They could just have zero free anything.
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Im sorry but your epistemics are very wrong. Providing a free service with no strings attached to nearly every website in the world adds a ton of value, possibly more than Cloudflare’s market cap. And the fact that a free product can lead to profits, when other companies make the choice to pay more, does not remove that worldly contribution.
The first one is always free...
I prefer to not have it at all. One thing is offering free service because you truly know the values. The other is making threats to people.
What market share would they have without offering the free tier? Much lower than what they have now, and that would make for a more decentralised and resilient internet