The Folly of Charging by Bandwidth

Matthew Prince shares his experience from 1992 when he was part of a team at Trinity College that built one of the first online-only magazines, which eventually gained popularity and led to bandwidth cost issues. This story resonates with many website owners who hope for their content to go viral but dread the resulting traffic spikes and unexpected costs. To address this issue, CloudFlare was created to eliminate both technical and billing concerns related to increased web traffic. The company buys bandwidth wholesale and establishes direct peering relationships to provide better pricing and service. Despite offering a free tier with basic features, CloudFlare plans to roll out more advanced paid tiers in the coming months.