The Stack Overflow podcast is a weekly conversation about working in software development, learning to code, and the art and culture of computer programming. Hosted by Paul Ford and Ben Popper, the series features questions from our community, interviews with fascinating guests, and hot takes on what’s happening in tech. Founded in 2008, Stack Overflow is empowering the world to develop technology through collective knowledge. It’s best known for being the largest, most trusted online community for developers and technologists. More than 100 million people come to Stack Overflow every month to ask questions, help solve coding problems, and develop new skills.
Why Stack Overflow and Cloudflare launched a pay-per-crawl model
In this episode of Leaders of Code, Stack Overflow’s Janice Manningham and Josh Zhang sit down with Cloudflare VP Will Allen to discuss the innovative pay-per-crawl model co-launched by their organizations. They explore how the rise of AI has disrupted the traditional “open versus block” internet model, creating a need for platforms to protect their content and data from commercial exploitation while maintaining community access.
The discussion also:
- Explores the future of the bot ecosystem, emphasizing the importance of putting publishers back in the driver’s seat to decide how their content is accessed and monetized.
- Explains the technical implementation of the pay-per-crawl system, which uses Cloudflare’s bot categorization and WAF rules to serve a 402 “Payment Required” message to specific crawlers.
- Highlights the strategic value of data licensing, comparing comprehensive enterprise contracts with the more flexible, programmatic pay-per-use access enabled by the new model.
Notes
- Connect with Will Allen, Janice Manningham and Josh Zhang on LinkedIn.
- Learn more about Stack Overflow Data Licensing here.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.