It's kind-of a requirement in 2026 -- you need something to MTM the amount of bot traffic that's going around these days and CF provides a good product and service (even outside of just the challenges portion.)
If you want to be mad at somebody, then it should be at the AI companies for basically forcing the rest of the internet to use them. They have broken every non-enforceable contract that it was built upon. We went nearly 25 years without needing something a MTM solution like that, and I would say, in the last 5 or so, it has become a hard requirement
Over at AppleInsider, the amount of bot traffic is insane, and it's gotten to the point where it's starting to even jack up some of our Google Analytics. No, GA we didn't see a natural 320% rise in visitors from Singapore...
It's almost a full time job to manage. Our WAF rules are 90% 'oh shit AI scraper bots found a new vector.' It doesn't border on DDoS -- it effectively is. Coupled with all the Google changes that started a few years ago -- which is a separate topic I could rank about for ages -- 2026 is just a VERY bad time to be a website owner. I actually wiped most of our robots.txt rules the other day because literally nobody followed them. Anybody who tells you otherwise is flatly lying.
This is the new normal though, we gotta try and figure it out
"Note: Little Snitch version 1.0.0 does not currently work with the Btrfs file system! Btrfs is used by default on Fedora, so Little Snitch does not currently identify processes on Fedora. We are working on an 1.0.1 release to fix the issue as soon as possible!"
I fail to see the obvious wisdom in having AI re-implement chunks of existing frameworks without the real-world battle testing, without the supporting ecosystem, and without the common parlance and patterns -- all of which are huge wins if you ever expand development beyond a single person.
It's worth repeating too, that not everything needs to be a react project. I understand the author enjoys the "vibe", but that doesn't make it a ground truth. AI can be a great accelerator, but we should be very cognizant of what we abdicate to it.
In fact I would argue that the post reads as though the developer is used to mostly working alone, and often choosing the wrong tool for the job. It certainly doesn't support the claim of the title
The whole premise of this is kinda wrong. Google killed SO more than anything else. Much like how they’re killing the rest of the web today. AI certainly didn’t help, but it is/was not the root cause, nor was the ‘toxic’ environment
I have been on a call with a CMP where they got mad at me for not resetting our user's preferences and because our 'do not accept' was high due to the fact i refused to de-promote it via a dark pattern. I kid you not.
fwiw; looking at our stats for the past year:
No consent: 40.8%
Full Consent: 31%
Just closed the damn window: 28.1%
Went through the nightmare selector: 0.07%
Your assumption is the reason his content was removed was because of the allegations, which is potentially not true. While it's very likely the allegations are what drew attention to it, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t a bunch of stuff there already that violated policies – especially given the content he had doubled down on.
All Youtube did was cite their “Creator responsibility“ clause[1] as the reason. This could have included a myriad of violations, especially considering the type of content he was producing.
Also, if you read the allegations, he very much was in the protected status you mention. “Open secret”, lots of people covering for him, running interference, etc etc. Calling him a “D-list celeb, likely with little to no major influence” illustrates your lack of research into the issue.
I see this angle a lot; " Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory [1]" it's often called. However, Facebook -- the single largest social website in the world -- stands as stark evidence that anonymity doesn't really factor in all that much. I'm not saying it isn't a contributing factor, but it's not the boogeyman it is so very often made out to be.
I think you may be proving the point I was attempting to make ;)
You do your best within the constraints you're given, which is what is being said in your example. You are welcome to make your arguments for or against a decision (as far as office politics allow), but just as there is a breaking point for you being told to do something you feel is "incorrect," there is a breaking point where you become "the guy who always gives them a hard time."
Soft skills are important as technical when you're working with others. You have to pick and choose your battles. Don't confuse a platitude with a literal decree. Does that make more sense?
How do you handle different opinions from yours and disagreements in general?
This seems like you're asking a question about basic social skills, and it's only tangentially related to development. I'm not saying that to dunk on you, but it seems like maybe you're framing the entire issue incorrectly?
If you are typing anything you desire to stay hidden forever into a completely unencrypted and openly data mined and brokered (read your privacy policy) cloud-based solution then I have a bridge to sell you...
