> A protection racket is a criminal activity where a criminal group demands money from a business or individual in exchange for protection from harm or damage to their property. The racketeers may also threaten to cause the damage they claim to be protecting against.
"cloudflare is engaging in monopolistic behavior" would be the saner take here, but the OP was specifically accusing cloudflare of being a "protection racket". Ticketmaster might be engaging in illegal monopolistic behavior in the ticket space, but nobody seriously thinks they're engaging in a "protection racket" over access to venues.
Cloudflare isn't unilaterally inserting themselves between the website and you. They're contracted by the website owner to provide website security, just like how ticketmaster is contracted by the venue owner to provide ticketing. I don't see what the difference is.
Most websites aren't "open to the public". Most use firewalls, configure rules, etc that already block certain accesses. It's open to selected groups, just maybe including 1s you're allowed to be a part of.
