They buy a service which should block a specific type of traffic, for example bots or attacks. I don't believe any of their customers have purchased a "block a random version of a specific browser" plan. The fact this is occasionally treated as a bug and fixed confirms that idea.
If the customer specifically set a header match to block some Firefox variant, people wouldn't complain to cloudflare about it.
Customers can pick several levels of aggressiveness when it comes to blocking bots. Some of the more obscure browsers easily pass the "low" threshold but don't make it past the "high" threshold. Some older browsers like Palemoon seem to crash or break the JS Cloudflare serves but that seems to be a browser issue.
If your favorite website is blocking you, let them know. They can tweak a lot in their WAF settings. I don't think many websites care about obscure browsers, but it's something websites can control.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Cloudflare has been failing this way for ages. At this point they're just accepting it and it affects people who don't understand or care who cloudflare is. It's an issue with cloudflare business model as a whole these days.
You covered everything except the most important case: Cloudflare blocks innocent people trying to access websites protected by Cloudflare.
For instance they block me because I'm behind CGNAT and because some of the millions of machines also behind that CGNAT once did something unsavory.
I'm not a customer of Cloudflare, so I have no one to call, I just get blocked from endless websites or have to click a checkbox, solve puzzles and suffer other indignities because I'm using a reputable and popular ISP in my country.
Fuck Cloudflare. They're accelerating the utter shittiness of the web because of their indiscriminate solutions to web malfeasance, which are worse than the disease.
I've experienced similar problems in the past. Cloudflare decides that something about the ISP or software I'm using is not on some secret approved list and we all get a bag of coal for Christmas instead of the content we were asking for until we've jumped through whatever hoops it decided to set up this week. And I've heard way too many anecdotes from way too many people in real life to believe this is some sort of isolated or unusual event.
If Cloudflare is now taking a hit because it's become collateral damage to an over-generalised penalty system despite having done nothing wrong itself then it is difficult to find much sympathy. If this blocking exposes how much of the web we all use every day is now being routed via a single point of failure that has been operating largely as a law unto itself then that also seems like a positive step to me.
> Everyone else other than you get to enjoy a snappy and fast loading site. I think that’s a good trade off.
The core logic behind that sentence is that it's good to be in an unfair system, as long as you benefit from the system and don't get unfairly targeted.
Work camps are also a good thing, provided you're benefiting from the work rather than sent to the gulag.
Cloudflare does not randomly block access to sites that don't deal with Cloudflare.
Cloudflare customers buy blocking service to their sites from Cloudflare. Any randomness there is just customer service issue.