Re:Show HN: DNS-powered website with no back end
by elliottinvent on Friday June 25, 2021 @02:58AM
(#27627893)
> None of this is free.
The data that powers this website is offered free to developers.
> You're not the party doing the offering.
We're offering it through our DNS zone num.net.
> Half the bill is being footed by cloudflare
It's correct that Cloudflare are doing a fair bit of work here, but we're a mosquito on the arse of a bull.
If NUM gets broad adoption DNS resolvers might refuse to answer (or more likely refuse to cache) our answers but there's plenty of resolvers out there and if people are using NUM to fetch useful data there'll be a competitive edge to being the fastest DNS resolver to answer those queries.
edit: line spacing
I just kind of assumed, the thing that's supposed to be cool here is using it in the web browser as a data storage backend for your entirely client-side app (since using dns simply as a key value store isn't particularly unique). And i don't think that usecase makes sense, since its all routed through a centralized https api translation layer anyways.
> us to offer data free, unrestricted and unlimited forever
Say what now? None of this is free. Half the bill is being footed by cloudflare, the other half by the domain owner. Using an api provided by someone else is not the same as offering something for free. You're not the party doing the offering.