Right. And nor does Jason have enough info on OP.

So it comes across, as I said, as a “gatekeeper-ass” thing to say in the context of OPs journey to self hosting.

Where they are is in no way “sad”. Except if you’re being an adversarial gatekeeper dick about purity.

I think your life is sad.

Let me know how you took that.

Welcoming? Adversarial?

I’m not out here to Stan for cloudflare. It’s just a totally valid tool for the job, there are valid reasons to use it, and as we agree, it’s not productive to tell a newcomer that their choice of meeting their needs is “sad”

In fact, it’s an unwelcoming thing to say. If we want folks to stop using cloud services, we can’t shame the valid paths to get there.

this is sad

They literally led by throwing shame unto OP.

That’s how they opened their response.

It is not sad. Suggesting it is sad is a “gatekeeper-ass thing” to say.

I think you missed my point. You are mistaking your preferred architecture with moral superiority.

Cloudflare is not “gatekeeping” someone from self-hosting. It is an optional tool. A person choosing to use it because they are new, budget-conscious, or not ready to expose services directly is not sad, fake self-hosting, or somehow philosophically impure.

You can absolutely argue that Cloudflare has tradeoffs. That is fair. It adds dependency, abstraction, and vendor-specific knowledge. It is not magic security dust. No disagreement there.

But telling a beginner “this is sad” because they are using a mainstream protective layer while learning is exactly the kind of gatekeeping that makes self-hosting communities hostile to newcomers.

Also, “just use a VPN” is not a universal answer. VPNs are great for private admin access. They are not always the right solution when someone wants family members to access media or services without managing VPN clients, device support, troubleshooting, and onboarding. Different threat models, different usability needs.

The helpful response would have been: “Cloudflare can be useful, but understand what it does and does not protect you from. Don’t expose admin panels. Use MFA, strong auth, least privilege, good backups, updates, reverse proxy rules, and keep anything sensitive behind a VPN.”

That is useful advice.

“This is sad” is just self-hosting purity signaling.

I have tagged you as “selfhosting gatekeeper” for future reference.

There’s plenty wrong with shaming people en route to that path for not being 100% there.

That is all I said.

That’s a gatekeeper-ass take. It isnt sad in any way shape or form. What an elitist proclamation.

If you build your own infra internally and want a billion dollar industry to be your point of entry because you’re not confident in hardening a vps or don’t wanna pay for that on top of everything else (yet), so the fuck what?

REEEE YOU MUST OWN ALL OF YOUR INFRA

🙄

Get bent. If cloudflare goes down again (for another whole handful of minutes, the horror!!) they are clearly ramping to make the jump to a VPS when the finances and/or cybersecurity chops feel ready and the needs arise. “Sad”? Please. Get off your high horse. You make the rest of self hosters look bad.

Probably means they said something that upset a corporate sponsor. Literally.

Disagree.

There are AI models you can download on your machine right now that have a pretty solid ability to talk about what life is like today. Hell, I’ve got a few on my home server.

If anyone spins up any of the hundreds of versions of the hundreds of thousands of models out there at any time in the future and asks “what was the public opinion of Elon musk in 2026” it will tell you what we all know.

People still have videogame consoles from the 80s.

You can no longer effectively erase the past. You can no longer effectively write history as you please. The state of affairs circa right now are crystalized and localized, distributed amongst the masses. It is the biggest Hydra in the history of history.

I vote they settle on changing the name to sausage.

Illin-wah

Person in red is dumb. Richard Dawkins himself has renounced the definition he set. Go read a book.

By Richard Dawkins original definition, a smile is a meme. As is a high five.

Ain’t nobody headed to c/memes to see a fucking high five, and red knows that.

Red is a pedantic annoying dbag. Green set a firm boundary with an idiot and I commend them.

Every AI logo is a butthole.

Holy fucking pretentious douche, batman! Catch my block list.

Woah, soulseek

I haven’t used soulseek in literally 20 years… Is it still a relevant place to get music?

Why does this thread smell like burnt toast?