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Cloudflare took down our website after trying to force us to pay $120000 within 24h
(robindev.substack.com)
this post was submitted on 26 May 2024
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That Cloudflare were justifiably unhappy with the situation and wanted to take action is fine.
What's not fine is how they approached that problem.
In my opinion, the right thing for Cloudflare to do would have been to have an open and honest conversation and set clear expectations and dates.
Example:
"We have recently conducted a review of your account and found your usage pattern far exceeds the expected levels for your plan. This usage is not sustainable for us, and to continue to provide you with service we must move you to plan x at a cost of y.
If no agreement is reached by [date x] your service will be suspended on [date y]."
Clear deadlines and clear expectations. Doesn't that sound a lot better than giving someone the run-around, and then childishly pulling the plug when a competitor's name is mentioned?
Considering the perspective of the poster, the misleading title, etc - are you actually sure they didn't?
Until Cloudflare responds to the post, it is IMO most beneficial to assume that the OP is being truthful and forthright. Doing so puts pressure on Cloudflare to either clarify or rectify the situation, whereas treating Cloudflare as though they are above suspicion accomplishes nothing.
After all, OP is very much the little guy here.
Eh, I have a couple of issues with that. For one, I doubt CF would even respond to this. I could easily see them using this very writeup to sue, with all the admissions in it.
The bigger part though, is calling an online casino, whose own IT team (the writer) admitted they were knowingly abusing the plan they were on, the "little guy".
Are they small in comparison to Cloudflare? Absolutely, those schmucks have way too much control of the internet. Calling an online casino, whose own staff lied in the title, the little guy though... Doesn't sit right with me.
No, I'm not going to side with them, or with CF. I'm going to make my assumptions off what I know (two terrible companies, one of which has a liar writing an article where they pretend to not have admittted to their own lies about the subject), and I'm going to assume this:
Seems pretty obvious to me. Barring further details, my assumptions are based on what I know, and I am perfectly happy sticking to that.
You do you.
From the additional info I read, it sounds more like the traffic wasn't the main issue.
Gambling is forbidden in a lot of countries or heavily regulated. Cloudflare uses a common IP pool for all customers, so a casino customer would possibly get their IPs blacklisted (by various ISPs). The Enterprise tier of Cloudflare has "Bring your own IP (ByoIP)", which they probably wanted to force onto this problematic customer to protect their business.
So it's actually a problem, not just them paying not enough (which is another reason to get rid of them as fast as possible).
That would have been a mature thing to do.