They're not saying what you think either, there's no reward system or transfer of value in free content, offered for free. It doesn't matter if it's hosted at someone's own expense if it's done for nothing other than the fun of it.
I never implied there was a reward system or value transfer (unless you count the feel-good reward of sharing knowledge with others and the value of doing so).
I said that putting things on the Internet is not, and has never been, "free".
And I think that's what Cloudflare is saying too.
You're free to interpret it differently (as was OP) but I think you're wrong. ;-)
CloudFlare is definitely implying there's always been a reward systems and value transfer at play, that's there in the quoted text and what the OP is complaining about
