Cloudflare Can't Stop Lying

Summary

该视频脚本讲述了云服务公司Cloudflare因销售策略问题而引发的争议。一位客户因不满Cloudflare突然要求支付高额年费或面临服务中断的威胁，表达了对公司销售行为的强烈不满。视频中提到Cloudflare利用信任与安全团队作为销售策略的一部分，以及CEO在公开场合对销售团队的不当评论，暗示了公司文化和管理上的问题。此外，还提到了其他客户遭遇相似的不公平对待，呼吁Cloudflare正视问题并作出改变。

Takeaways

• 😡 视频作者对Cloudflare的销售策略感到愤怒，认为其具有欺诈性和掠夺性。
• 💬 作者提到Cloudflare使用“无限”这一模糊词汇，导致客户在流量增大后面临突然的价格增加。
• 📈 Cloudflare被指责在没有明确指标或服务条款变更的情况下，突然要求客户支付高额费用。
• 👤 视频中提到Cloudflare的CEO Matthew Prince在公开场合对销售团队的表现表示不满，但未对内部问题进行解决。
• 🕊️ 作者强调信任与安全团队的重要性，但Cloudflare却利用这一团队进行销售，作者对此表示震惊和不满。
• 💻 作者在Cloudflare工作期间体验到了由于销售团队的不当行为导致的服务中断和业务损失。
• 📉 视频提到Cloudflare股票表现和公司文化问题，暗示公司可能存在更深层次的管理问题。
• 🚫 作者建议其他企业在使用Cloudflare时要谨慎，以防被其不透明的定价策略所影响。
• 🗣️ 视频呼吁Cloudflare的CEO和其他高层对这些问题作出回应，并改善公司的业务实践。
• 🔄 作者分享了自己在业务中遇到的问题，以及如何通过迁移到其他服务（如Fastly）来解决这些问题。

Q & A

Cloudflare的业务计划突然要求支付高额费用的原因是什么？

根据视频脚本，Cloudflare的业务计划突然要求支付高额费用是因为他们要求用户要么支付120,000美元的预付款以使用一年的企业服务，要么他们将关闭所有域名。

脚本中提到的销售团队使用了哪些不当手段？

脚本中提到销售团队使用了误导性的语言、施加虚假的最后期限、滥用信任与安全团队的名义来迫使用户升级到更昂贵的服务计划。

脚本中提到的“无限流量”是什么意思？

在脚本中，'无限流量'是指Cloudflare提供的服务计划声称不限制流量使用，但后来Cloudflare突然改变了政策，开始对大量流量的用户收取额外费用。

脚本中提到的企业销售策略有哪些问题？

脚本中提到的企业销售策略问题包括强制性的预付款要求、缺乏透明度的定价以及使用高压策略迫使用户升级服务。

脚本中提到的Cloudflare的CEO对销售团队的态度如何？

脚本中提到Cloudflare的CEO在公开场合批评销售团队的表现，指出许多销售人员未能达到预期，并表示公司正在更换表现不佳的销售人员。

脚本中提到的用户在Cloudflare上的遭遇是否是个案？

脚本中提到，用户的遭遇并不是个案，还有其他用户分享了类似的经历，表明Cloudflare的销售策略可能普遍存在问题。

脚本中提到的用户是如何回应Cloudflare的策略的？

脚本中提到的用户通过寻找替代服务（如Fastly）并公开分享他们的负面体验来回应Cloudflare的策略。

脚本中提到的用户对Cloudflare的信任是如何丧失的？

脚本中提到的用户对Cloudflare的信任丧失是由于Cloudflare突然改变服务条款、施加不合理的费用以及在没有明确解释的情况下锁定用户账户。

脚本中提到的Cloudflare的技术支持团队与销售团队之间存在什么关系？

脚本中提到，Cloudflare的技术支持团队似乎与销售团队有紧密的联系，技术支持团队在没有提供明确问题和解决方案的情况下，参与了对用户的高压销售策略。

脚本中提到的用户对于Cloudflare的哪些做法感到不满？

脚本中提到的用户对于Cloudflare的高压销售策略、缺乏透明度的定价、滥用信任与安全团队的名义以及在没有明确解释的情况下锁定用户账户等做法感到不满。

Outlines

00:00

😡 云端公司的销售混乱

本文作者开始表达对文章内容的恐惧，提到Cloudflare公司销售团队出现问题，CEO发表了一些糟糕的言论。作者描述了自己在录制视频时逐渐失去冷静的过程，并提醒观众注意CEO Matthew对销售团队的评论，这使事情快速恶化。作者提到Cloudflare突然要求他们支付12万美元的企业费用，否则将关闭所有域名，这导致了业务中断和客户信任的损失。

05:01

🚨 Cloudflare的销售策略问题

作者继续详细说明Cloudflare的销售问题，提到企业销售团队的掠夺性行为和虚假的定价期限。作者引述另一位科技人士的经历，证实了这种情况的普遍性。作者强调Cloudflare的销售团队需要改进，并表达了对这种情况的不满。

10:03

🔍 信任与安全团队的失职

作者介绍了Cloudflare信任与安全团队的角色，并批评他们利用该团队作为隐形斗篷进行销售的行为。作者详细描述了销售团队如何通过虚假工程问题进行销售，并举例说明了一名销售代表因未达到业绩指标而被解雇的事件。作者强烈谴责这种销售文化，并认为这对公司的信誉构成巨大威胁。

15:03

💰 销售与服务的巨大裂痕

作者详细描述了与Cloudflare销售团队的多次沟通，说明他们如何强制推销企业服务，并威胁客户在24小时内签订合同。作者强调这种行为背后的销售指标压力，并指出销售团队与工程团队之间的巨大鸿沟。

20:03

🔒 账户封禁与企业定价

作者讲述了Cloudflare在客户未签订企业合同后，关闭其账户并删除所有域名的事件。作者指出，这种行为违背了公司的服务条款，并导致客户业务的严重中断。作者还批评了Cloudflare在定价上的不透明性和随意性。

25:05

💼 CEO对销售团队的指责

作者引用了Cloudflare CEO在财报电话会议上对销售团队的严厉指责，认为这是CEO推卸责任的一种表现。作者对这种领导方式感到震惊，并认为这种公然指责会对团队士气和公司文化造成极大伤害。

30:05

📈 Cloudflare销售团队的压力

作者进一步讨论了Cloudflare销售团队的业绩压力，认为这是导致他们采取激进销售策略的主要原因。作者指出，销售团队为了达到季度目标，不惜威胁客户签订高额合同，并批评了这种不道德的销售行为。

35:06

⚠️ 客户服务与支持的缺失

作者描述了Cloudflare在客户支持方面的严重不足，尤其是在面对重大服务问题时。作者批评了Cloudflare在解决客户问题上的拖延和推诿，强调了这种行为对客户信任的严重损害。

40:07

❗ 随意定价与不透明的商业模式

作者总结了Cloudflare在定价上的随意性和不透明性，指出这是公司利用不对称信息压榨客户的主要手段。作者呼吁Cloudflare提高透明度，并为客户提供明确的服务和定价信息，以避免类似问题的再次发生。

Keywords

💡Cloudflare

Cloudflare是一个提供网络安全和内容分发服务的公司。在视频中，Cloudflare被提及为一个重要的互联网服务提供商，但其销售团队的做法受到了批评。例如，视频提到Cloudflare的业务计划突然要求支付高额费用，否则将关闭服务，这显示了Cloudflare在销售策略上的争议。

💡销售策略

销售策略是指企业用来推广产品或服务的方法和技巧。视频中提到Cloudflare的销售策略具有侵略性，如使用虚假的最后期限和价格增长来迫使客户升级到更贵的服务计划，这与视频的主要主题——对Cloudflare销售行为的批评——紧密相关。

💡信任与安全

信任与安全通常指的是确保在线交易和通信的安全性和可靠性的措施。视频中，Cloudflare的信任与安全团队被错误地用作销售策略的一部分，以误导客户认为存在安全问题，而实际上这只是为了推动销售，这种做法在视频中被强烈批评。

💡企业计划

企业计划通常指为满足企业级客户需求而设计的服务套餐。在视频脚本中，提到了Cloudflare的企业计划，价格昂贵，且包含了许多客户可能不需要的功能，这反映了Cloudflare的销售策略和产品定价问题。

💡价格不透明

价格不透明意味着服务或产品的价格没有明确地向消费者公开。视频中提到Cloudflare没有公开其流量限制或企业定价信息，导致客户在不知情的情况下被要求支付高额费用，这是对Cloudflare商业行为的一个主要批评点。

💡域名

域名是互联网上用来识别服务器地址的一串字符。在视频中，提到Cloudflare在与客户的合同谈判期间突然删除了所有DNS记录和域名，导致客户网站和邮件服务中断，这是Cloudflare被指责的一个行为。

💡服务中断

服务中断指的是服务突然停止工作，影响用户访问和使用。视频脚本中描述了Cloudflare在没有预警的情况下中断服务，给依赖其服务的客户带来了巨大损失，这是对Cloudflare服务可靠性的一个批评。

💡流量

流量在互联网服务中指的是数据传输的量，通常以GB或TB为单位。视频中提到Cloudflare根据流量大小向客户收费，但具体的流量限制和计费标准并不透明，导致客户在不知情的情况下面临高额费用。

💡无限

无限通常指的是没有限制或极限。在视频脚本中，Cloudflare的'无限流量'计划被批评为误导客户，因为实际上存在一个隐形的使用上限，超过这个上限，Cloudflare会要求客户支付更多费用或升级到更贵的服务计划。

💡客户信任

客户信任指的是客户对品牌或服务提供者的信赖和依赖。视频中提到，由于Cloudflare的行为，客户的信任受到了不可修复的损失，特别是在Cloudflare突然中断服务和使用高压销售策略的情况下。

Highlights

Cloudflare的业务计划突然要求用户支付高额预付款否则将关闭服务，引发用户极度不满。

用户与Cloudflare的三次销售通话尝试解决合同问题，但遭遇不合理的合同条款。

Cloudflare在用户与竞争对手Fastly谈判期间突然下架用户所有域名，导致业务中断。

用户对Cloudflare的信任度因服务中断和销售策略而受损，导致不眠之夜和业务迁移。

Cloudflare的销售策略被指出具有误导性和掠夺性，使用虚假的紧迫性和价格提升来迫使用户升级服务。

用户对Cloudflare的不满不仅限于个案，其他用户也分享了类似的不良体验。

Cloudflare的CEO Matthew Prince被批评对销售团队的不当行为缺乏回应和纠正。

用户指出Cloudflare使用“无限流量”的承诺，但实际上存在隐性限制和潜在的高成本。

Cloudflare被指责在用户不知情的情况下锁定账户和隐藏使用数据，导致用户无法评估服务使用情况。

用户尝试与Cloudflare协商合理的合同，但遭到强硬立场和缺乏灵活性的回应。

Cloudflare的销售团队被指责在没有明确违规证据的情况下，以服务条款违约为由暂停用户账户。

用户对Cloudflare的企业文化和销售策略提出质疑，认为其对用户不公且缺乏透明度。

用户分享了与Cloudflare的沟通记录，揭示了销售团队的高压策略和对用户的威胁。

Cloudflare的CEO在公开财报电话会议中批评销售团队的表现，但未能提出有效解决方案。

用户呼吁Cloudflare的CEO对销售策略进行公开回应和改革，以恢复用户信任。

用户建议其他公司从Cloudflare迁移，寻找更透明和公平的服务提供商。

用户总结了Cloudflare事件的教训，提醒其他公司注意业务模式的潜在风险和对服务提供商的依赖。

Transcripts

quick real talk before we go into this

one because I'm horrified I knew going

in that this article was going to

concern me because I'd seen a little bit

about it watch part of Prime's video but

I did not realize Cloud flare was

burning the sales org is a disaster the

CEO has said terrible things and you

need to just watch this one I slowly get

more unhinged as we go through so make

sure you stick to the end because once I

find what Matthew the current CEO has

said about their sales team everything

clicks and it falls apart really fast I

cannot remember the last time I got this

mad when filming a video but I'm pissed

so yeah normally I don't go this hard on

companies but normally companies don't

screw up this bad in our purview so yeah

take it with a grain of salt obviously

I'm sponsored by competing companies I

don't think that matters though because

I've never seen anything like this in my

20 years of writing code now yeah

anyways let's dive in tldr we've been on

the cloud flare business plan which is

$250 a month for years they suddenly

contacted us and asked us to either pay

them $120,000 Upfront for one years of

Enterprise within 24 hours or they will

take down all of our domains whil

escalated up our business we had three

sales calls with them trying to figure

out what was happening and how to reach

a reasonable contract in a week when we

told them we were also in talks with

fastly they suddenly purged all our

domains causing huge downtime in our

Core Business sleepless nights migrating

away from cloud flare irreparable loss

in customer trust in weeks of ongoing

downtime in our internal systems if this

was a one-off thing if this was the only

time I'd heard something like this I

wouldn't even be doing a video about it

i' would be waiting for cloud Flair to

respond Maybe cover that probably not

though sadly this is not the only time

I've seen this if you're not familiar

with Jack he made fathom similar to

something like plausible or post hog

really good solution for analytics

people love it seems totally fine to me

haven't personally used it seems great

guy absolutely knows what he's doing so

for him to come out and say and this is

why Cloud Flair has been banned from

being used at our company our experience

wasn't an isolated incident told you

this is exactly my experience as well

the Enterprise sales are predatory don't

have as extreme an experience as this

but they impose fake deadlines for

prices signed before end of week or

price increases there's a lot of these

types of things this went viral and

there's no context about my experience

or views from the last 12 months this

reply on Reddit is effectively my

position here Cloud flare is an

important service for the Internet it's

helps so many people but they need to

fix their sales team it is so bad this

is the theme we'll be coming back to

throughout we need to dig into this

though because the story itself might

sound ridiculous with all these things

going on outside I promise you however

bad you think it is it's worse I'm ass

engineer at a fairly large online casino

I think this article is relevant

regardless of whether you think that in

general casinos are ethical or not I'm

just mentioning it for context I love

that they're not hiding the bit about

the casino CU obviously casinos are a

salty topic I worked at twitch we dealt

with a lot of people upset with online

gambling and I totally understand but

that's not what we're here to talk about

and I like they called it out so people

aren't going to be mad they also call

out here the 4 million monthly active

users this will be a useful number as we

do some math crunching later on we had

been happy Cloud flare customers since

2018 on the business plan which has some

neat features and it cost us $250 a

month for unlimited quotequote traffic

now admittedly $250 is probably fairly

low for the amount of traffic we were

pushing through cloudflare we mainly use

CF for the CDN cashing all of our static

content as well as for the Dos

protection for which it works pretty

well it's easy to use and you don't

usually have to think about it much this

is fun because we're in a similar boat I

don't even think we're on the business

plan yet for upload thing and we're

already putting terabytes of traffic

through it but at any moment they're

going to come crack down and they are

not very clear about how much these

things cost I want to point one thing

out as we go in this word here unlimited

it's always a lie because you will

eventually hit the limit of unlimited or

they'll change the policy so it's no

longer unlimited Dropbox used to have an

unlimited plan and they acted it now

it's like 20 terabytes and if you're

over they'll give you like 25 terabytes

temporarily I think it's awful Google

Drive had a similar thing where it used

to have an unlimited option they've

asked it even something like what we've

built and I'm going to call ourselves

out now just to make it clear here with

uh oh I didn't know the toolbar would

come up on our production site that's

interesting with upload thing we don't

charge for uploads and downloads as we

see here unlimited uploads and downloads

they cost us money though when somebody

uploads and downloads from upload thing

we are paying so there is a limit that

we'll get to some day where some users

abusing the fact that this is free or

we're underwater with the cost of the

service because of it and we'll have to

make changes either to individual

customers or to the overall policy

because accessing and uploading files is

a thing that costs money we don't think

think that this is something a developer

should have to think about so even

though this is a cost that we are eating

as a business it is not a cost I think

our user should have to eat not just

like dollar-wise but mental model wise

for us unlimited isn't look we are so

much cheaper than the alternative it's

this is one less thing to think about we

charge you based on the storage you use

and nothing else because we want it to

be the simplest possible experience I'm

bringing this up though because there is

a future where we have to change this it

almost feels inevitable maybe not for

everybody but for certain segments of

customers that are doing way too much

upload and download we have to think

about this so even though we're saying

unlimited now implicitly this will have

to change for some customers at some

point in time and we know that as we

push it and we use the word unlimited

but once you get to a certain stage and

you're charging people with a promise of

unlimited this is when things start to

fall apart quickly and that's the theme

of this post here there's a lot of

things that are said to be unlimited

until you hit the limit and then all of

a sudden they're going to start charging

you a shitload of money I've read a few

articles on Hacker News about how at

some point cloudflare cont text you

asking you aggressively to move to their

Enterprise with custom pricing but I

wasn't expecting it to go this horribly

from my experience they haven't pushed

Enterprise too hard in fact I had a good

group chat with a couple existing

engineers at cloudflare trying to figure

out if features that we wanted were in

the non-enterprise program or not they

weren't so as such we didn't have to do

the Enterprise regardless they didn't

push it too hard but I was also talking

to Engineers not to sales and it seems

like there's a big rift between sales in

the rest of cloud flare April 19th 2024

in April we received this email from

cloud Cloud flare also important your

Cloud flare account settings that does

not give enough info that's a terrible

subject also notice this is business

development representative this is an

important email that isn't actually from

engineering or info or something this is

from the business Dev team they're

trying to sell you something also gaming

and I gaming interesting this is a

business Dev person in a specific gaming

subsection of the business there's some

serious issues with your Cloud Player

account settings that are potentially

affecting our Network please contact us

to resolve the situation as a matter of

urgency it's very important that we

speak to resolve the situation ASAP this

is going to be fun this is where the

misleading starts because again

this isn't engineering this is business

Dev representative this is a salesperson

contacting them on some issue that's

affecting Cloud Flair's Network this is

actually affecting Cloud Flair's Network

they'd be getting Outreach from

engineering not from sales but this is a

pattern that we're going to establish

here of sales doing things that sound

like engineering trying to highlight

engineering problems that don't actually

exist honestly I've received fishing

emails that felt less weird than this

yeah would 11:00 a.m. on Monday work so

this is on a Friday and I tried to

schedule a call for the next week on

something that was potentially affecting

their Network this is a sales call this

isn't an actual help us make sure this

server crash isn't real yeah your app is

crashing our servers contact us in like

4 days it sounds like there's some issue

with our website we scheduled a call

with their business development

department turns out the meeting was

with their sales team and they didn't

have any serious issues to report at all

they asked us whether we would like to

consider Enterprise we politely declined

a bit confused as to the tone of of the

email we receive another email this

one's from Ry hello as part of routine

monitoring your accounts and domains

were brought to our attention following

intelligence of your account being

involved in domain rotation activities

namely activities to evade or otherwise

circumvent blocks being placed on You by

a third party more random things that

sound like engineering jumping in but

probably aren't usage of cloud flare

services for this purpose is strictly

prohibited and we would like to request

you provide information as to what your

account and domains are being used for

within the next 48 hours note that your

account may be terminated should you

fail to respond or otherwise react to

this

notice again sounds like engineering

found something here but this concept of

the domain rotation activities that's

not strict enough that's not explicit

enough a problem they need to give us

real details now this needs a bit of

context on what they are talking about

we do have multiple domains that mostly

act as mirrors to our main domain we

have these for a few reasons one is that

since we're a casino we have different

regulatory requirements that we need to

comply with in many countries for

example many games are only available in

some countries some countries we block

completely then we have a few different

domains that remove certain game groups

or site features for example our social

features like chat user tipping

interactions or our sports book another

is that we use them to Target different

Global user groups and Affiliates and

track conversions long term this also

means that if a country DNS blocks our

main domain a secondary domain may still

be available this could arguably be seen

as a violation of the cloudflare term of

service as they wrote about arguably

could be absolutely would be nice if

they said what was going on for real

rather than giving this type of vague

generic email in any case we receive

greater than 95% of our traffic through

the main domain and that's been

unchanged since our founding and we're

happy to resolve this issue in whatever

way including by removing any affected

secondary domains from cloudflare again

if they just had the conversation they'd

be down to make changes but Cloud flare

is not actually interested in the

conversation as we're going to see as we

keep going we sent them info about our

domains and tried to get more

information from them about the issues

and who from our team we should be

getting involved but they refuse to give

us anything apart from a date for a call

seems like this is the only thing they

actually want there which again these

themes are continuing to happen May 7th

so we scheduled another call now with

their trust and safety team okay here's

what I'm going to start getting spicy

because trust and safety is a thing

that's very important to me I spent the

majority of my time at twitch working on

trust and safety tools it is a super

underappreciated and honestly super

painful thing to work on that is

essential to basically any online

business the ability for your service to

take content in from other users

inherently puts you at risk if you have

the ability to host files to host text

to send and receive anything you now

have a trust and safety issue and that

team needs to be treated very very well

given all the resources they need and

just understood trust and safety has to

be trusted in order to keep your thing

safe it needs to be its safe isolated

box even within the chaos that was going

on at twitch when I was there trust and

safety was given the resources and

opportunities they needed to succeed and

on a live video platform that was

essential and some companies do this

well some do it poorly the ones that do

it well never get the respect for it the

ones that do it poorly get blasted as a

business but not their failures within

trust and safety just their failures as

the business overall I am so mad about

the next sentence here it is surreal it

but it turns out we were actually

talking to sales again the fact that

trust and safety is being used as an

invisibility cloak to trick someone into

going into a sales call deeply deeply

disturbs me it makes me feel sick trust

and safety's job is keeping the internet

a safe and fair place not an angle to do

another sales call it's

horrifying the way the sales org is run

at Cloud flare is genuinely terrifying

and if it was just this side that would

be one big issue that I would believe

like just these two instances is enough

to disband the entire org but sadly it

gets worse if you guys remember earlier

this year a cloud flare account

executive was laid off and account

executive is another sales role and

almost certainly reports to the sales

team she had a three-month onboarding

and then got let go during the third

month specifically because she hadn't

hit any metrics yet because she didn't

have any metrics to hit yet because she

was still doing onboarding the reality

was they were doing layoffs they didn't

want to give her Severance so they let

her go as though she was being fired

they made up this performance issue of

her not hitting numbers that she had no

opportunity to hit CU she hadn't

actually done the job yet and she got

asked as a result and it's horrifying

that that can even happen but again it

seems like this sales org is effectively

an entirely separate shitty company that

happens to exist within cloudflare and I

think it's important we acknowledge that

as such Cloud Flare's infrastructure

Cloud Flare's technology Cloud flare

services those can all be good while the

sales team at the same time can be utter

and that is what I'm seeing

here and that's what I want to call out

the combination of the misleading use of

words like unlimited and like the hard

price cap at the $250 a month combined

with a sales team that's just predatory

results in a massive liability for any

business currently using Cloud flare and

that is terrifying to me if you want to

watch this I'll give you the heads up

it's a bit of a painful watch having

somebody get fired on video but it's

there if you want to take a look so

links in the description if you're

curious yeah the the fact that trust and

safety is being used as a cloak for

sales still irks me but we need to go

through the rest of this as much as that

alone makes me sick they said they could

offer us an amazing contract for $10,000

a month with all kinds of great features

we tried figuring out how exactly this

was related to the terms of service

problem and how to resolve the situation

again they're just trying to sell them

something they're not actually saying

hey here's the problem here's how you

solve it to contrast this with any other

service I do I site triangle company

okay this is an explicitly not sponsored

by versel video but if you have issues

with like bandwidth pricing on versel

the response isn't oh you should pay

more the response is oh can we talk

about this they'll look at what you're

experiencing and they'll make

suggestions accordingly even I do that

when people show pricing on the services

that they're using that is worse than

they expect companies like AWS and

forell are willing to forgive thousands

for user errors Cloud flare is willing

to lie and intimidate to get money who

should I pick yeah talk all the you

want about for sale you better be even

louder and more shitty about this

because this is so much worse holding

somebody's service hostage like this is

unreal and in every single one of those

my versel or AWS or netlify Bill

situations that goes viral every single

time they get refunded not how it goes

with Cloud flare if you already seen s

HS it's a very interesting site it's

made by the guy who created coolify

which is a really cool service worth

checking out if you haven't it's

self-hosting meant to be similar to

things I'm sponsored by like versel so

if you really don't want to use a

service you can self host you still have

to put it somewhere but at least you're

not using for yourself you really don't

want to cool it exists good for them

this website's always amused me because

most of the examp here are bad examples

we scroll here the Firebase Cloud run

one is hilarious I do remember if I

recall correctly they did get refunded

for this the site Maps one uh yeah this

was on versel yeah they got refunded for

that the uh and since then we've gotten

a lot of firewalls and things to prevent

this type of spamming uh versel Bill uh

where somebody got $3,000 because of a

recursive call I'll admit this one

pissed me off a bit because they had a

really rough support experience poor

shoe box did not have a good time with

support he did build an error

accidentally where he had an astro app

that was cursively calling itself on a

server so this did actually execute for

almost 10,000 hours but versel did not

help him try to debug this or fix it or

anything and he had to tweet in order to

get a refund this one sucked this is the

best example in here but every other

example in here this one was refunded

this one had a huge support flop but was

refunded uh this one was refunded uh

this one ended up finally getting AWS on

their and fixing some things as

well as being refunded and then this one

is the first one that as far as I know

has not been handled since so despite

the fact fact that all of like the anti

versel netfi people the anti- lamda

anti- serverless people almost always

are like yeah but you can go use cloud

flare they're actually free and fair

here's a list of other services that

their users accidentally and made

up for it since and then one that didn't

that is the one we usually recommend

instead so if you're recommending Cloud

flare as a cheap alternative to verell

you're recommending a huge liability

alongside it and I hope you guys

understand the difference here a list of

mistakes that have been refunded is a

very different thing especially when you

consider this is over the course of 4

years every time this happens it gets

refunded if it didn't that would be in

here hell that'd be the homepage but the

only one here that hasn't been handled

thus far is this Cloud flare one I want

to draw the distinction here also a fair

point that this probably doesn't even

fit on the serverless one thank you

Cooper for pointing this out because

they're not using any of cloud Flare's

serverless stuff they're just using it

as a CDN and dos protection they're

barely even using cloudflare it is just

a host for some assets so that's crazy

let's keep reading though cuz this only

gets worse from here we asked which

domains were affected by the rotation

concerns they didn't give us an answer

we asked which of the Enterprise

features we actually had to get they're

not telling them why they need

Enterprise they're just trying to sell

them Enterprise they would not offer us

anything apart from a full deal for 10K

per month which would magically resolve

the issue they were not interested in

any other resolution they said we had 24

hours to sign their contract because

they had to get back to trust and safety

bring them to the goddamn call then let

me talk to trust and safety don't make

me pay a massive troll fee in between

the team that is reporting the issue and

my service they've still yet to clarify

what is wrong what domains are affected

anything at all they're just saying

trust and safety told us we could scam

you it's awful and this type of like

deferring like oh sorry that team needs

this they're the ones with the info

utter chaos we asked to pay monthly they

said we need to sign a yearly commitment

and pay the full year upfront are you

kidding are you actually kidding the

fact they're not willing to do this for

a month instead of a year says so much

they're just trying to hit a number also

important whenever you see things like

this it's really important to check what

time of year it is notice that we're

nearing mid to end March so they say

March and it says may okay thank you for

the correction there most orgs are

measured in quarters or halves so

there's q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 which are the three

month chunks for the year or H1 H2 which

is the two halves what this screams to

me very very obviously is that the sales

team isn't hitting their metrics NOS

these are all in May and we're getting

progressively later into may this is

important because May is the end of Q2

and it's the end of H1 won so if your

team didn't hit your metrics suddenly

you're going to start pushing

you're going to go real hard to make

sure by June once you're collecting your

numbers and presenting what you did for

the last half of the Year you going to

rush to get whatever sales close you can

and that's what's happening here they

want to have a $120,000 check mark on

their H1 report for the first half of

the year because they didn't sell as

much as they're expected to and they

just got cut with layoffs and they're

scared of losing more head count so

they're going as out of their way as

they can as the sales org fighting for

their existence in the company or just

going after shitty metrics that have

been predetermined it's hard to say what

level this issue exists at if this is

they're struggling to convince the

company that they should exist or if

they're struggling to convince the exec

of sales that they're doing their jobs

but something is going wrong here where

they are threatening businesses in order

to hit their numbers that they're trying

to for the first half of the year but

that's what happened here almost

certainly after this call they sent us

the following as discussed please find a

summary of the solutions needed for your

use case as well as the prelim quote so

they have these random things in here

they supposedly need like bring your own

IP you can lease IPS and we will onboard

and advertise them on your behalf as

well as SSL for S which helps you add

and change host names in mirrors within

3 seconds of propagation without the

need to set up DNS CDN dos wa or SSL

configurations this could be done via

API as well why do they need these

things they also say includes all these

other cool things that they might want

uh you can use any other provider like

Lis all these IP providers cool don't

care commercial is the license

$9,985 billion requests uh your main

domain and hosting for rotation and

bring your own IP support cool we have a

very short window to report back to the

trust and safety team please let me know

if you can make the time tomorrow at

1:00 again this we have to tell trust

and safety so you need to pay for this

so we can tell them the right thing so

your account doesn't get banned sales

should never be the thing between you

and your service existing if there is a

sales team between you and your ability

to have an application out you're

you should never be stuck talking to

sales with stuff like this the fact that

cloud flar is architected in a way that

this can even happen should require the

CEO to come out apologize for this fire

a bunch of people and make a huge stink

about it can somebody link the cloud

flare CEO's Twitter because if he hasn't

said something about this I'm going to

go so hard right now let's see if he has

said anything yet nope oh it's the

five-year anniversary of cloud flare

going on the New York Stock

Exchange wonderful so they're in the

middle of celebrating the fact that they

are publicly traded while not

acknowledging the fact they screwed this

up so badly wonderful yep confirmed this

is the 21st the CEO has not said a

single word about this Matthew what the

what the actual how do you see

this happen how do you see emails like

this the use of your trusted safety team

like this the treating of your entire

engineering org as a bargaining just to

harass somebody into a sale not calling

this out is implicitly endorsing it and

I don't think this is something you want

to endorse Matthew and I seriously hope

you take the opportunity to come out and

say yeah we screwed up here we should

not be threatening our customers with a

40x price increase or we take down their

services without telling them what

metrics they've went over on this is

insane the fact that Matthew hasn't come

out publicly and said we screwed up here

we're sorry like AWS does this now how

the hell AWS coming out and saying yeah

we screwed up on S3 their oldest service

and Cloud flare can't say yeah our sales

team was awful here we shouldn't do this

yeah 40x and one year upfront how how do

you think this is okay one more personal

anecdote we had an issue where we set up

billing for unit based pricing well

usage based pricing for upload things so

if you go over the 100 gigs we can Bill

accordingly and we screwed it up and we

build somebody an amount of money that

was a bit absurd they probably should

have been build like 20 30 bucks but

since we screwed up the billing we

accidentally build them like a grand I

haven't stressed about this since we

immediately refunded them we put a bunch

of changes in place to make sure it

can't happen I gave the guy a ton of

credit personal support reached out did

everything I possibly could and the

response was awesome it was like yeah

I'm a Founder too we totally expected to

see mistakes like this no worries thanks

for jumping on it so fast really

appreciate the credit and even then I

have felt bad about it since and this

was a few days ago and I I you not

I think about this when I fall asleep at

night cuz I feel so bad that a customer

of ours even if it didn't affect them

and they're fine could experience

something that bad due to mistakes that

we made it makes me awful it is entirely

my fault I go out of my way to address

these things when they happen and even

then I feel like and I promise you

if we had somehow failed to reach out to

him that somehow went public I would be

eating so much publicly it would be

funny like the fact that a fellow CEO of

a business that people rely on could do

anything other than Focus like laser

focused in on this right now especially

now that like it's not just the sales

team being implicated here the abuse of

trust and safety to make a sale should

should make him sick and if it doesn't I

can't trust Cloud flare anymore in fact

I'm scared now because I made this video

they're going to be paying more

attention to how we're using Cloud flare

and they might come after us too I have

no reason to believe that they're a

goodfaith player if they're not

addressing things like this it's

terrifying I don't care that it's a

Casino I don't care that they

did how much traffic 80 terabytes of

traffic I don't care a 40x price

increase needs to be justified needs to

be communicated needs to be talked about

with the services and the owners of the

things that are causing problems not use

as a lever for sales to harass you but

we're not even at the worst part yet

believe it or not because these threats

weren't just vague empty threats also

the email implies a monthly payment

might be possible but when asked for

clarification they were told they have

to pay the full year upfront we do not

need most of these features that they

mention I understand asking us to do a

bring your own IP to remove the LI

liability from their domains but the

rest is all things we don't need or are

purely nice to have again they're only

using Cloud flare as a CDN and as a Dos

protection layer nothing else H we

managed to buy a week of time by letting

it escalate to our CEO and CTO and

having them talk directly with Cloud

flare but still they didn't care about

any other resolutions to the issue and

they refuse to give us any other

contract options finding numbers online

is difficult but if you squint your eye

a bit compare with this post and this

post 80 tab of traffic might have a

reasonable price of $150 to $2,000 per

month also this is the real reason

companies say unlimited like this

because it's unlimited until you're big

enough traffic and then they try to sell

as high of a price as they can to you

worth noting that basically everywhere

on cloud

flare they don't give you real like

numbers uptime service credits what the

an uptime service credit so you

receive credits if the service goes down

cool why is that locked into higher

tiers if it my Pro service is down whyde

do I get nothing that's stupid like the

only metrics in here are Support options

and Cloud flare rules there's nothing in

here about amounts of traffic there's

nothing in here about how much bandwidth

you can transfer none of the these

things because they always say it's

unlimited that's always their thing but

the reality is that it's not unlimited

they use the word unlimited to give

themselves some flexibility in the

future when they want to try and upsell

you at a higher cost because as

mentioned here different customers are

almost certainly paying different rates

they don't have a single fixed rate for

these things because some companies can

pay a lot more and they rely on cloud

flare so hard they can just push them

harder and harder until they cave and

pay for it which is horrifying the fact

that these companies are basically able

to make up the price on the spot and

they're giving themselves the wiggle

room by using the word unlimited to

guarantee they can charge whatever they

feel like in the future is insane it's

actually

insane not that 80 terab is the number

they tried to sell us I don't know if

it's accurate since they removed all our

access to historical analytics here's

where things start to fall apart they

actually locked them out of their

account not just like took down the

services or started throttling things

like straight up ax their account and

now they can't even see how much they

did or didn't use I've seen Cloud

Enterprise accounts for two clients the

current one is paying the equivalent of

3 cents per gig but there's another one

with the same service with Enterprise

support that's at. 2 cents per gig

that's more than a 10x difference

Insanity for an honest bandwidth offer

I'd much sooner consider fly IO rather

than Cloud flare at least with fly their

true pricing is

transparent yeah not all bandwidth is

equal and not all unlimited is real in

fact most unlimited isn't and not every

gigabyte is the same gigabyte this is

insanity you know I actually can't

believe they do this and we don't talk

about it more hi I'm Cloud CTO this

doesn't sound right to me please forward

the correspondence you've received with

us to his email and I'll take a look

into this internally this is an internal

company they were on the business plan

suddenly cloudfare wants us to pay

$3,000 to $4,000 a month which we

clearly don't have budget for check

their fine print it says nothing about

limitations whatsoever not saying cloud

is bad but their sales tactics are shady

and there was a lot of integration done

on our backends to migrate from Google

Cloud platform to cloudflare this really

has left a sour taste in our mouths if

they had just been up front I could have

saved all of the pain and the money

they're doing 200 300 terabytes a month

yeah but again if you look at Cloud

Flair stuff it doesn't say anywhere at

what point they're going to lock you out

unlimited is just a lie here sanity so

Cloud Flair just shut us down with zero

warning because we were negotiating with

fastly a competitor of cloud Flair after

I told them we are reviewing the

contract and finished it today we're

also waiting on a proposal of fastly

Cloud flare then returns shut off our

services in order in order to what feels

like blackmail us into signing an

agreement for $120,000 a year hence the

downtime anyways we're up soon with

fastly shout out for them for acting so

proactively to help us yeah I've only

heard good things about fast I know that

they're being used for a lot of

interesting

stuff this a cloud flare person blog and

social media programs at Cloud flare

okay Ryan I'm sorry you're the one stuck

dealing with this as a Blog and social

medias person for cloud flare I'm sorry

you're the one in the fire this

definitely not because you were talking

to another provider mentioned other

negotiations looks like our team was in

communication over a different issue you

respond to L reply someone should be

able we were communicating on a daily

basis and gave a heads up that we're

almost done finishing to review the

agreement a couple hours later

everything was shut off understood but

definitely wasn't due to any

negotiations if you reach back out on

that thread we can provide some

clarity again I'll be honest I don't

think the also waiting on a proposal

from fastly thing is particularly

relevant here like it sounds really bad

and it's definitely giving them Less

Reason to negotiate because it seems

like the cloud flare team kind of

operates like terrorists but uh I think

this part's being a little overplayed it

sounds more like they had these

deadlines set they were pissed and tired

of waiting and just went with it because

there's some serious self-righteousness

going on in this org I just don't think

this part's particularly relevant but

I'm thankful they found fastly and I'm

thankful that they've been a good

alternative for them because this is

utter nonsense and Ryan I appreciate you

for being the one to come out here and

say something I agree that this wasn't

the talk with another provider but

somebody higher up than you like your

boss's boss's boss's boss needs to come

out and make a public statement about

this cuz this is absurdity cloud flare

CEO publicly calls out sales team in

worst earnings call to date one year ago

although although we've won a third of

the Fortune 500 customers If we're

honest with ourselves we saw a lot of

success with our Enterprise customers

because our products were so good and

solved real problems that every big

company faces that allowed many on our

sales team to succeed largely just by

taking orders when the fish are jumping

right into the boat you don't need to be

a very good fisherman but at the risk of

mixing watering metaphors the tide goes

out you get a clear view of who's not

wearing shorts the macroeconomics

environment has gotten harder and we've

seen that some of our team aren't

dressed for the work digging in with

Mark we've identified more than 100

people on our sales team who have

consistently missed expectations simply

put significant percentage of our

Salesforce has been repeatedly

underperforming based on measurable

performance targets and critical kpis

that's obviously a problem remember

earlier when I said it's unclear if this

problem's coming from an exec in sales

or if it's coming from the top level we

have our

answer what the actual what a

terrible way to call out your team what

this makes me feel sick like I'm

actually I I don't normally get like

choked up like this on content but I I'm

so sorry to that team

genuinely what the this is

horrifying this is like the stereotype

of evil bad guy CEO playing out in front

of us you have to take the fall I've

taken the fall for things that weren't

technically my fault three times because

they were actually my fault cuz I'm the

one who runs the business there is not a

single point here where he takes any

fault in fact he does the opposite Here

If we're honest with ourselves we saw a

lot of success because our products were

so good so whenever he's saying good

things it's us but when it goes down to

like the problems we've identified more

than 100 people on our sales team who

have consistently missed expectations a

significant percentage of our Salesforce

has been repeatedly underperforming

that's obviously a problem the even

if all of this was true which it's

almost certainly not but even if

everything here was true the polite way

to redo this is we're rethinking our

sales strategy make it like a company

level reorganization and restructuring

thing don't make it a you guys suck at

sales thing because you don't know

anything about sales clearly like

clearly clearly you even called that out

here you're only making sales cuz your

products were good you need to get at

sales then because you're not good at

sales this is terrifying we're now in

the process of quickly rotating up

members of our team who have been

underperforming and bringing in new

Talent with sales people who have a

proven track record of success grit and

strong cultural fit give you some sense

these 100 plus people contributed

approximately 4% of annualized new

business sold over the last year so

we're optimistic we can make the team

upgrade without significantly impacting

sales capacity this is the most

heartless layoff notice I've seen in my

goddamn life holy Matthew what the

is cloud flare evil company I won't

click this but I didn't think so before

this I'm just getting more and more

horrified as we keep going back to the

story cuz this is going to be a long ass

video at this rate May 16th 2024 in

another call trying to negotiate a

reasonable contract our CEO told Cloud

flare sales that we were also talking

with a competitor I would have thought

this is obvious who wouldn't look for

Alternatives we getting SL with $120,000

invoice but a few hours after that call

this happened Purge Purge Purge Purge

Purge Purge Purge this is cloudflare

axing all of their domains I will say

just judging from how slow Cloud flare

has been throughout this I still just

really don't think this is what caused

them to purge I think this is just their

shitty internal timer getting hit not

some more malicious behavior Cloud

suddenly deleted all of our domains all

of our DNS records caching setups rate

limits white lists all gone our public

website our incoming emails including

support emails from our customers as

well as our internal infrastructure our

authentication configuration on cloudfl

access all down they also sent us this

email your Cloud flare account has been

suspended Cloud Flor account associated

with the following email has been

suspended for possible terms of service

violations Cloud FL TOS are available

here the account suspension does not

impact disable or remove your current

services this does block addition of new

domains to your Cloud flare account

while this matter is under review they

still have not been told what terms of

service they are violating or what is

violating in the first place the email

says this does not impact current

services so we frantically wrote them a

support ticket but got no response yeah

also they specifically said it doesn't

impact current Services which was a lie

cuz all their got taken down so we

called our ssops team and started

migrating to our main site over to

fastly we had the basics after a few

hours but even then an NS DNS entry

change apparently takes a pretty

arbitrary time to propagate everywhere

from 1 hours to 48 hours we're still

recovering from the aftermath at some

point cloudfare finally responds to our

ticket oh that's hilarious they violated

the not signing the $120,000 a year Bill

term of service yeah g yeah the legal

implications here are nuts I if this

isn't illegal it should be thanks for

contacting the cloudfare Tactical

support we've escalated the request onto

our trust and safety team for review Oh

you mean sales you mean Troll and sales

sales team Gaslight and sales would be a

better name for that but yeah trust and

safety we'll reach out to you soon and

we help you to address your request

please note that your request with

technical support has been closed as our

trusted safety team will need to follow

up directly if you need any other

technical support assistance please

follow the instruction on our support

portal this ticket will now be marked as

closed trust and safety never reached

out to us and our account remains

locked if any one of these things

happened at a business I was involved

with the of outrage I would feel as an

employee knows no bounce if any of these

things happened at a company I ran or

was an executive at it would be the only

thing I do for the next week if not

longer is make sure the public knows we

screwed up the public knows we're

addressing it and the private knows

whoever is involved that we are going to

go out of our way to make sure that they

have the best experience in the world

like I'll hop in and write code for them

I'll help produce their streams for them

main business I'm still running is Ping

Zoom for streamers we had customers that

had issues and those customers were

having issues with things like OBS or

streams that might not even be our fault

and I would still dive in and help

co-produce their live shows I still help

co-produce a lot of the Austin show

lover host shows cuz they're using ping

and we need to be sure nothing goes

wrong with

them would I cut ties with clerk forell

Planet skill if they did something like

this absolutely if any of my sponsors

did something like this even one of

these things and didn't meaningfully

follow up apologize own and refund

absolutely instantaneously will walk

back this is actually part of why me

having them as sponsors is so good

because now they have the liability of

losing Theo if they screw up they won't

because all of these companies actually

care about their customers and I know

the sales orgs of some of these

companies well and they are pretty

awesome people too that actually are

deep in the tech and don't have a CEO

breathing down their neck threatening

them constantly about arbitrary metrics

but if you're not down to get in the

weeds here you got to step back and not

be part it doesn't seem like Cloud Flair

has any interest in engaging with this

business and they're going to dance

around it the whole time it's disgusting

any one of these things would be enough

of a reason for them to go all out on

like fixing this the combination of all

of these things genuinely horrifies me

and I cannot believe the current CEO

hasn't hasn't done anything he

instigated this by building this culture

and hasn't stepped up at all yeah I I'm

disgusted if the real reason is that

they have some weird legal thing because

casinos just say it say we don't want to

do business with casinos so we're going

to ask you here's how much time you have

just say it don't hide under all this

or give them arbitrary prices

but like this isn't because of the legal

thing this isn't because of the casino

thing because if it was they wouldn't be

pushing for more money they'd be pushing

to get rid of them and as much as this

feels like they're trying to get rid of

the customer it more so feels like

they're trying to make their sales

deadlines hit like the 24-hour deadline

to pay this absurd fee of 120 Grand

that's not them trying to get a customer

to leave that's them trying to make as

much money as they can off a

customer my tips for when Cloud flare

reaches out to you first of all congrats

your business must have become pretty

successful how exactly did cloudfare

decide to ask you to switch to

Enterprise maybe you hit 10 ter of

traffic a month lava lamps went into a

specific astal alignment a sales rep

realized they haven't hit their

quarterly quotas yet I really think it's

this one another fun one might happen to

me and I'll be I promise you I'll tweet

if this happens making a video about how

awful their business practices are let's

see if that gets you an email from cloud

flare CU I'm very curious but in the end

who knows Cloud flare has absolutely no

information on when they will force you

into custom billing but when they say

urgently needing to talk to you you're

probably not going to get out until you

have a juicy Custom Contract with them

again it's this they don't tell you and

this is the issue with the unlimited

unlimited is a invisible bar it's not an

actual guarantee it's an invisible bar

that says hey if you have a certain

level of traffic that we're not going to

tell you by the way but if you get to

this invisible threshold we might just

take you down we might just charge you a

shitload of money but that's an

arbitrary bar that we have no Insight on

whatsoever even the pricing we saw was

entirely random based on the business

and how much money Cloud thought they

could make off of them this is why I

like clear thresholds and numbers that

are told to you and build and promised

and as much as a company like versell

gets they show you how much every

single thing costs even S3 will break

down every part of their pricing for you

it's obnoxious to calculate it as a

result but at least they're telling you

where these thresholds are even us with

upload thing like we're still very early

but we still need to figure these things

out too the stuff like even as a small

business I feel bad that we haven't

figured this out to see a company worth

like Cloud flare market cap how much

money is cloud flare work right now 25

billion see a $25 billion

company lying about these things hiding

these numbers and taking down companies

products and platforms and incomes and

jobs like people could have lost their

jobs over this not at cloudflare they

already lost their jobs but at the

companies that they're harassing in

these ways this is disgusting let's keep

reading this this has more good info

there's a reason why they have no public

info anywhere on traffic limits or

Enterprise pricing their sales team will

use anything like having multiple

domains as fuel to force your whole

account to Enterprise no matter if it's

fixable in a simple way yep they didn't

have a metric that's the other thing

like if they had a metric they're like

you did this much numbers so obviously

you need to be charged more if they said

that like we have a soft cap of this

many terab of traffic and you went over

it so that's why we need to bill you

more cool but they didn't they just kept

making up random trust and safety

cuz that's why they fell back on trust

and safety they had nothing else to

point at it's devious and devilish are

great words for this cuz what the

the price they give you is going to be

purely based on what they think you

might pay not on any measurable metric

or feature set yep absolutely we tried

asking how the price is going to be

affected if we have less traffic but

they refuse to say anything except the

80 terab included number we have a large

amount of callback traffic that uses IP

white list and this doesn't actually

need to go through a CDN we just never

spent time optimizing it since unlimited

traffic was included yeah yeah if they

even said like hey if you get traffic

below this number you're good cool let

us figure that out but give me a number

don't give me a bill we tried saying

that we don't need any number of the 14

features that are included they said all

of those amazing features are included

whether we want them or not numbers

found on Hacker News threads linked

above suggest that prices vary by at

least one order of magnitude for the

same exact services at least we try

saying our different domains like

internal ones don't all need Enterprise

they said the whole account has to be

Enterprise if they think you are flaky

maybe if you have Alternatives they'll

give you unreasonable deadlines and

force you into paying the year upfront

yeah the deadline thing is super toxic

and it seems like they presumed some

level of flakiness I don't know if it's

the think you're flaky is why they did

this they might just do it but hard to

know for sure they'll use any excuse as

a reason for why you suddenly need

Enterprise even if you're happy with the

feature set of business we're not the

only ones that got their businesses

threatened by Cloud FL aggressive sales

tactics here's four posts on hn the same

thing happened we went through one of

those already just because you're paying

$250 a month don't expect any kind of

courtesy or non-sale response to support

males I'll be frank we wouldn't even be

using Cloud flare if I didn't have

engineer friends there who could help us

debug things and like a current X

employees that help a ton I already have

a whole thread about how weird Cloud

Flare's DX is but knowing their sales is

this bad and getting a hold of supports

even worse this is horrifying you want

Cloud flare to respond to you outside of

sales the only way is apparently to give

them negative press I really hope this

helps there because this burning needs

to happen this is a tweet from guo CEO

verell their bandwidth is free but it

costs you tremendously in performance

and stability they admit it traffic jams

so Matthew tried to cleverly reband

bandwidth as Argo and below is just the

starting price yine above points out all

of the landmines enjoy the ride yeah uh

versel is very done with Cloud flare

recently it seems does not surprise me

yeah look at that they added this new

Argo thing when you actually need

traffic that's guaranteed where they're

charging you 10 cents per gig how many

different numbers do we have for their

per gig pricing now we had 3 cents per

gig we had. 2 cents per gig now we have

10 cents per gig free plan plus Argo

they just Rebrand the word bandwidth so

that they can slide by here as though

they're not scamming people like the the

whole Cloud flare is super Fair priced

and free thing is another one of those

you're not actually scaling your

services things like if you have a small

number of users yeah cloud flar is

effectively free for you forever but if

you're using it for your business at any

given time your business might be held

hostage at least with these other

services like versel or AWS you have

clear price scaling based on what things

you're using or not using cloudflare

hides every number it is even when I was

talking to Cloud flare I was trying to

get a number from them for how much the

way we're using Cloud flare would cost

us they couldn't even help us figure it

out our bill right now is like five

bucks a month but it's randomly going to

hit that business tier and then

afterwards we're randomly going to get a

sales call and it's going to go poorly

and I'm not excited yeah free egress but

you're charged for every

request so bad be ready to move away

from cloud flare within 24 hours

don't register domains directly don't

use custom caching rules don't use any

proprietary Cloud for their products

zero access workers R2 D1 any of these

things even KV those are just things

that are going to hold hostage and

imagine if they had actual data in

cloudly like imagine if this company

wasn't using cloudflare as a CDN and DNS

protection and they were actually using

cloudflare features to like store their

data they might be out of business now

since they were lucky enough to use

cloud flare for its strengths which are

its CDN and its DNS and not to use cloud

flare for things like every other

product it has they lucked out here they

would have got booted to Enterprise way

before fair point but that doesn't make

it better make backups of your

configuration on cloudflare it's

unexpectedly large pain to recreate all

of these configs including various

sending email Services yeah especially

when they lock you out entirely and you

can't go download the things because

they suspended your account make sure

you understand the impact of cloud

Flare's business model on you either

you're leeching off cloudflare because

you're a customer in the fre your

business plan or cloud flar is leashing

off you with the intransparent

Enterprise pricing there is no in

between and at some point the time comes

to switch and consider whether you need

Cloud flare at all Cloud flare only

managed pretty large dos attacks for us

if you have a bit more vulnerable attack

surfaces like an uncashed

unauthenticated API request that eats up

100 milliseconds of CPU time and can use

cores up with just 10 to 100 requests

per second Cloud flare is not even going

to detect it especially since all

semi-professional dos attacks as a

service groups seem specifically to

specialize for cloudflare backed

services including under attack mode

workarounds yep

yep I feel sick shout out to Robin for

writing this and I'm sorry that your

business is going through this genuinely

horrifying o there's hn comments as far

as I can tell the issue is the following

op runs a casino gambling site gambling

is a regulatory mess yep and so it's

very hard to comply with every

jurisdiction everyone needs you to prove

compliance to operate in that

jurisdiction yep due to that IPS hosting

gambling and gambling sites often get

regionally blocked by internet providers

cool Cloud flare wanted them to use the

bring your own IP features of the

Enterprise plan and did not want them on

cloud Flair's IPS they should have said

that yeah okay you're saying that here

cool the message from cloud Flair should

have have been Enterprise plan plus Bop

bring your own IP or ban and maybe it

will work with you on price but instead

it's you would really like the

Enterprise plan yeah this ends up being

the case which doesn't sound unlikely

they just don't want to be the one with

the IP address for the gambling site

cool say that say explicitly to the

customers hey we don't want gambling

stuff on our IP addresses so you have to

bring your own IP here's the best way to

do that this is disgusting everyone

involved with this should feel bad and

or be fired Matthew make a statement you

can't just let this sit here you can't

just let this video and primes video and

everything else that we've been saying

about this sit here because people hate

gambling and that's what I'm scared

about here is that we're going to use

the fact that this happens to be a

gambling site to justify the fact that

cloud flare sales team is incredibly

toxic and running and operating in

terrible ways this should not be allowed

regardless of what kind of business this

is in regardless of how you feel about

the business just tell the customer what

the issue is don't dance around it like

this and don't put a huge bill on it if

the issues IP addresses tell them if the

issues you don't want them in your

service tell them if your issues that

they cost you too much money tell them

don't just keep making up and see

if you can get away with it yeah this is

disgusting and I hope you guys make some

changes well you need to because

otherwise the war on cloud flare

begins until next time peace nerds