SSH into private machines from anywhere using Cloudflare Tunnel

wasn't that the idea of ssh to begin with?

You mean, like just login to a server without going through layers of cloud providers? How would that work?

For real, I can't imagine running a straight port 22 ssh service on the modern internet, but I'm usually happy just moving it to an unprivileged port for obscurity on personal equipment (plus some other common sense hardening of course). For work stuff, I'd feel naked without some sort of VPN and it seems that's essentially what these services are.

With passwords disabled and just using key authentication, is there a big risk of just doing a straight port 22 ssh?

Genuine question, my knowledge of server security is low-to-middle.