(edit: It seems that it was sarcasm! I didn't detect it!)
You'd think the HN crowd, with access to a lot of information, probably higher education, and basic knowledge of history, would be smarter than this, but maybe not.
Maybe I misunderstood your comment. Traffic wise, I'm not sure if they're ahead of other "privacy violating" proxy services, so I was wondering if there's something special about Cloudflare. They're all MITM traffic after all.
The problem with these blocks is that they always end up blocking normal users, making the browsing experience worse... the opposite of what the intention was.
I use a forum. The operator decided to block almost every IP range associated with a data center. The problem is that more people are using VPNs due to the spread of geo restrictions, local laws like age verification, etc. And so now I need to disable my VPN - assuming I'm using one - just to access the site.
You'd think the HN crowd, with access to a lot of information, probably higher education, and basic knowledge of history, would be smarter than this, but maybe not.