> I really liked the pretty clear and reasoned abuse policy[1]
Except it's neither. The way they try to brand their caching reverse proxy as only a "security service" instead of a "hosting service" is absurd and not based on any well reasoned logic.
So what if they aren’t hosting the backend? How do you even define “the backend”? Is it the PHP frontend code serving the site? Or the database server?
Cloudflare definitely was hosting the content through their CDN. That’s hosting, there’s really no reasonable debate to be had about this.
The point is the site can come back online through an alternate CDN vendor, assuming they can find one that wants their business. The origin server(s) presumably are still online. The origin servers "host the site."
"Origin server" is a well understood concept in CDNs.
My opinion is that if you're hosting controversial content, it's on you to provision redundancy. No company has the obligation to serve you if you piss them off, violate their TOS, whatever. So, yeah, you better be prepared with a back up host to switch to in a hurry.
Except it's neither. The way they try to brand their caching reverse proxy as only a "security service" instead of a "hosting service" is absurd and not based on any well reasoned logic.