Both make implicit assumptions. One assumes the worst of Cloudflare and thinks “what’s the worst reason Cloudflare could have for doing this. How do they profit off this?” And the other assumes that Cloudflare has good intentions.
Neither answer is technically wrong. Both flow logically from their initial assumptions. But it shows how different our conclusions can be depending on where our initial biases lie. For the person who believes the first answer and says “prove to me that Cloudflare isn’t doing something nefarious”, it’s not possible. The analysis is correct and can’t be challenged unless the initial assumption is challenged. And for people who strongly believe that Cloudflare has bad intentions, nothing can be done to change their mind.
In this example it’s Cloudflare but it applies to any person or organisation that we feel strongly about.
So, yes, good observation.
And while the second answer is a statement, not an analysis the rest of what I said holds. You will only accept their statement as the truth if you assume good intent of them.
you are saying the accessor function getX() which returns a value of X but you don't trust it, you think it's giving you crap, should not be treated any differently depending on whether the getX() function even has access to X or has absolutely no such access. (For example if the value of x isn't even on the same network partition as the getX() function you don't trust.)
You're saying if you don't trust it, it doesn't matter if the function itself even has access to X or doesn't.
In one sense that might be true, but in another sense that seems silly. If getX itself has access to X, you can try to determine whether it is giving it to you. if getX doesn't have any access to X, then it doesn't really matter what it's doing, its process is irrelevant.
so to me there's a huge material difference. We can try to judge the process by which getX() returned Cloudflare's motivations. What steps did it perform to return that value? What's the code? etc.
huge difference. that knowledge is somewhere in the company.
You do not really address the fact that they are not required to say the truth, or that when the truth is harmful for their public image they are directly incentivised to not speak the truth. The only way you do address this is by saying that this is something that needs investigating. I would posit that the grandparent has done this already, and come to the sensible conclusion: There is less reason to trust someone incentivised to lie than there is to trust someone who knows nothing.
Aside from that trust, we have to evaluate the validity of statements. Given prior knowledge, for Cloudflare in the bad case the likelihood of a valid statement approaches zero. For the random yelling things as they pop into their mind, it is completely unknown.