> they mitigate the largest DDoSes in the world

> DDoS-for-hire cost only a few dollars per minute

I imagine those two are closely related. If not for Cloudflare and similar offers, we would spend more effort & resources on non-symptomatic treatment of internet-scale bad actors and its enablers (lately, more under-maintained "smart" devices than dumb modems, I hear). Every unresolved-for-years botnet is excellent advertising for CF, and they are not even paying for it. (We are all paying for it, dearly.)