This also explains why CloudFlare is reluctant to turn down any customers at all, even when the customers are actual Nazis. You can only be the Internet’s toll booth if a huge chunk of its traffic flows through you. And the bigger that chunk, the higher a toll you can get away with charging.
So they are naturally going to strenuously resist any suggestion that they should have standards for who they do business with, because the higher those standards become the less their business model works
It’s also why CloudFlare’s current line is “yes we do business with loathsome people, but when we do, we offset it by donating to progressive causes.”
1) CF already burns money, nobody there is going to sweat about burning a little more
2) The money they spend now will be more than made up when they reach the goal of being the internet’s official man in the middle. Which they can’t reach if they turn lots of clients away.
It’s the progressive-politics version of greenwashing. They’re happy to spend a little more today, if by doing so it will shut people up long enough for them to seize the monopoly position they’re gunning for. And then it won’t matter what you think of them, because you’ll have to pay them regardless just to go about your life online
It’s also why CloudFlare’s current line is “yes we do business with loathsome people, but when we do, we offset it by donating to progressive causes.”
1) CF already burns money, nobody there is going to sweat about burning a little more
2) The money they spend now will be more than made up when they reach the goal of being the internet’s official man in the middle. Which they can’t reach if they turn lots of clients away.