Cloudflare decided that customers like myself are no longer that important. What happened?

First working day of the year and I find out that all my subdomains that operate as image proxies are banned. I opened a ticket and 1 hour later (surprisingly fast) a very vague reply arrived. To summarize:

"My non-html content is disproportionate to my html content."

I tried to explain that this is normal. I mean, our service consists of an HTTP API, Front ends and of course images. 8 hour later I received a similar response, asking me to remove non-html content first and then they are going to evaluate the situation.

In the meantime I was in the process of migrating out of cloudflare all my image related services. My clients were furious of course and so was I. How can I explain them what happened?

I replied back:

"I have already done that. But please let me understand first. Having a pro plan on cloudflare means that I cannot proxy images for my service and only serve non-image content? How does that work and how can I monitor if I am complying. Because as you can understand I cannot play my reputation to my customers on dice. You have to be crystal clear on what you are providing to me as a customer. Your rules are vague and unsuitable for running a critical business."

The other side of this story.

We use Imageboss for all our image manipulation needs. During our migration out of cloudflare we had some difficulties with their service. I reached out to them and within an hour they helped us go through this migration and really saved the day for us. A really huge "thank you" to Igor for treating us with professionalism.

I am sure that cloudflare can do anything they like with their Terms of Use. This post is not about that, nor my frustration with their handling. The problem is that small businesses cannot depend on huge providers like google or cloudflare. On the other hand, other small businesses like Imageboss were humane, professional and could really help us when we were in need.

It's still possible to have control of your infrastructure but we are heading to a future where this becomes more and more difficult. I really liked cloudflare but always had on the back of my mind that I have to be ready for something like that. And I was. I just didn't believe they would be so disrespectful, inconsiderate and simply bad for business.

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