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The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

(positiveblue.substack.com)
454 points positiveblue | 2 comments | 29 Aug 25 16:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.533s | source
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jmtame ◴[29 Aug 25 16:54 UTC] No.45066514[source]▶
I pretty much use Perplexity exclusively at this point, instead of Google. I'd rather just get my questions answered than navigate all of the ads and slowness that Google provides. I'm fine with paying a small monthly fee, but I don't want Cloudflare being the gatekeeper.

Perhaps a way to serve ads through the agents would be good enough. I'd prefer that to be some open protocol than controlled by a company.

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rs_rs_rs_rs_rs ◴[30 Aug 25 10:03 UTC] No.45073391[source]▶
>but I don't want Cloudflare being the gatekeeper

Cloudflare is not the gatekeeper, it's the owner of the site that blocks Perplexity that's "gatekeeping" you. You're telling me that's not right?

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1. jmtame ◴[30 Aug 25 16:10 UTC] No.45075775[source]▶
Cloudflare is a gatekeeper because they’re trying to insert themselves between the owner and the end-user. Despite all the altruistic signaling, they really just want to capitalize on AI. And they’re happy to do that even if it results in a subpar experience for the end-user. They started this with a focus on news organizations, so I’m not particularly excited about trying to block AI access and lock down the web through one private company just so we can preserve 90s era clickbait businesses.
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2. rs_rs_rs_rs_rs ◴[30 Aug 25 17:05 UTC] No.45076196[source]▶
>Cloudflare is a gatekeeper because they’re trying to insert themselves between the owner and the end-user

But they can't insert themselves without the owner directly adding them. So it's the owner that's doing the gatekeeping(regardless if it's Cloudflare or iptables rules)

I think all you AI people blaming Cloudflare are just trying to deflect from the actual problem which is more and more owners don't want AI crawlers going through their content.

If Cloudflare dissapears who are you going to blame next, the iptables developers, maybe Linus Torvalds?