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Is it plausible some ISP shared some IP address that was on Cloudflare's list of suspicious IPs, or that some IoT device on this person's network created a burst of suspicious traffic?

I get that this sucks for the end user, but I wonder how much we should blame Cloudflare vs the wider systemic challenges of managing DDOS protection on the web.

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I believe that might happen, but then I also believe it's the ISP's responsibility to ensure that its IP addresses are kept clean

For sure, the point I'm making is that there's a multi party transaction here, with systemic complexity. Makes it hard to pin responsibility on just Cloudflare (or just the user or just the ISP, etc).

Cloudflare is the one blocking a user based on things that aren't their fault; I'm happy to blame them.

That's fine, but you are ignoring the broader picture if you do. You've correctly identified a detail, but haven't placed that detail in context.

I'm not ignoring the context, I'm saying that it's irrelevant. Cloudflare made the choice to block real people based on factors outside of their control, and then to market that product as a panacea; they don't get to pass the buck, doubly so when they don't expose enough information to let other people fix the things they broke.

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