alt Hacker News> cloudflare sells fear
A lot of people here don't just run trivial hobby sites. They work for companies that actually have a real need for DDOS and WAF protection. Maybe you have no experience with that, but it is extremely common and even required for sites that require compliance certifications like SOC2.
There are other providers of DDOS protection, and other WAFs.
The main advantage Cloudflare has is that it is free and a big brand.