> CloudFlare can shut you down if you go against their interests as a supranational gatekeeper

They already can.

> Smart thinking Batman.

“Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.”

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

“Be kind. Don't be snarky."

Sometimes I think you can ignore the "rules" a bit - they are really guidelines. Your parent was clearly expressing exasperation and engaging effectively and intelligently.

Cloudflare just provides the tools, ultimately it’s the website owner’s decision how to use them.

There are alternatives to cloudflare tho. If the government cuts you off or starts enforcing 24/7 surveillance there's not a lot that can be done other than tossing them out in the next election (if there are elections) or civil disobedience until they renege

agreed on that ... I'm not too happy with how CloudFlare tried to flex their influence on AI training, so I certainly wouldn't want them in charge of gatekeeping the whole internet.

But the truth is, we are already there. CloudFlare can already do this, they just won't because the their customers will leave if they violate their trust.

Only if you want to keep using CloudFlare. You can make your site available without.

Not really. It's more like Cloudflare is providing an ipset in your iptables config. It's not Cloudflare's decision: they're just making it easier for you to do it.

The people turning on the "block UK" button can block the UK regardless of what CDN they use.

Cloudflare just offers a button with fewer false positives than naive GeoIP databases. They're not so much gatekeepers as they are the security guards hired by the stores themselves.