This content originally appeared on dbushell.com and was authored by dbushell.com
Yesterday I blogged about how Google and others ruined email. They act as gatekeeper, hamstring smaller email providers, and make self-hosting practically impossible.
Email is not the only slice of the internet Google want control over. They’re after the web too using their search and browser gateways. The web has proved more resilient than email. Google’s more brazen attempts at a web coup d’état like AMP have failed. For now the web remains a relatively open playing field compared to email.
Enter Cloudflare
Cloudflare are another company gaining gatekeeper status over the web. Yesterday they launched a new setting to block AI Scraper and Crawlers.
I host and front my website using Cloudflare services. I immediately toggled this setting on. I’m not fan of AI pollution.
This shiny new toggle distracts me from an awkward hypocrisy. Didn’t I just criticise gatekeepers? No doubt you see the similarities between Cloudflare’s AI protection and Google’s spam protection. Cynically one could label such services as a protection racket. Hand over sovereignty of your domain and everything will be okay. Just be careful they haven’t become indispensable, or hostile, by the time you want it back.
more than 20% of the web and 30% of the Fortune 1,000 relies on Cloudflare
By using Cloudflare services are we handing them too much power? Is 20–30% too big? How big is too big for the web? Various sources estimate Gmail to be ~30% market share. That’s enough for Google to have a strangle hold over email.
Google have long used their dominance over search and browser to force websites to play their games (see SEO & AMP). The web has so far resisted Google’s grasp, at least to the extent that it’s still possible to publish a website — unlike an email — without their blessing. What games are Cloudflare playing? What are they cooking up? It would be naive to think Cloudflare only have the best intentions.
Many questions and quandaries that leave this post with an unsatisfactory conclusion. I’m go back to burying my head in the sand. I’ll wait for someone smarter to tell me what to think.
I’ve criticised Google plenty this week. There are actually good people doing good for the web within Google. It’s nothing personal!
This content originally appeared on dbushell.com and was authored by dbushell.com