Cloudflare Blocks AI Bots & How Reddit Cut App Size 20%

Welcome to a new month and a new quarter!

Some of you are knee-deep in planning, others might be counting down to vacation.

As for me, I’ve just returned from Vercel Ship 2025 in New York, and I’m excited to share what I learned. 

Meanwhile, Cloudflare is now blocking AI crawlers by default, and Meta keeps pulling top researchers from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic for its superintelligence team.

Speaking of Anthropic, they recently let Claude run a small business. It didn’t go well. 

If you're in the mood to learn, check out the case study of Twitter Lite, the PWA that powered billions of requests, and how Reddit cut its iOS app size by 20%.

Oh, and after 20 years, PNG image format finally got an update.

Grab your coffee, relax, and enjoy this week’s Frictionless.

In the Queue

• When to Be the Bad Guy

• Tips on Lowering Vercel Bills 35%

• Context Engineering - Must-Have Skill

• Who Is a Chief AI Officer and Do You Need One?

Reduce Friction

It’s Time to Be the Bad Guy

There are a lot of parts to being a good leader. Sometimes it means making hard calls for the good of the team. While it’s not something I enjoy (probably nobody does), there are moments when being firm is the most supportive thing you can do.

In Praise of “Normal” Engineers

The “10x engineer” idea is inspiring, but the real progress likely comes from the “normal” developers who solve problems without fanfare. Are you giving them the support they deserve? Or are you too focused on AI to notice who’s moving the project forward?

Why Engineers Hate Their Managers (And What to Do About It)

The relationship between developers and their managers often swings between mild frustration and full-blown distrust. Learn what causes this disconnect and what steps to take before your top talent decides enough is enough.

Do You Need a CAIO? The Rise of the Chief AI Officer in 2025

AI is present in almost every part of business, so it was only a matter of time before the role of Chief AI Officer. I’ve been wondering - does every company need one? Let’s have a look.

Deepen Your Expertise

Building the Twitter 1.0 Web Experience

Twitter may have changed beyond recognition, but the architecture behind its PWA, Twitter Lite, is worth studying. Read how a small team built a high-performance app that handled billions of requests while serving the best user experience on the web.

Vercel Ship 2025 Recap

Attending Vercel Ship was an amazing experience, and if you missed it, Vercel prepared a recap of the whole event. Check what we’ve learned and what Vercel is preparing for the future.

How We Reduced Vercel Hosting Costs by 35% for a Client – Full Case Study

Even small details can have a big impact on your Vercel bill. Together with Jakub Dakowicz, we made a video going deeper into how we managed to lower the hosting costs of our client by 35%.

Reddit's iOS App Binary Optimization

What would you do if your app's size suddenly grew to 280 MB? Reddit ran into this issue and used Profile-Guided Optimization (PGO) to fix it. Gathering real runtime data and reorganizing “hot” functions helped them cut the binary size by 20% and speed up cold launches.

AI Corner

Here Are the Top AI Researchers Who Just Joined Meta’s Superintelligence Team

Mark Zuckerberg managed to lure top researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, and Anthropic (some reportedly with nine-figure offers) for his new Meta Superintelligence Labs. Sam Altman, who not so long ago was mocking these attempts, now seems to be on high alert.

Cloudflare Just Changed How AI Crawlers Scrape the Internet-at-Large

Cloudflare’s had enough. From now on, all AI crawlers are blocked by default, unless you let them in. With developer complaints piling up and hosting bills inflated by AI traffic, Cloudflare sets a new standard for content protection and puts pressure on AI companies to play fair. It also comes with the pay-per-crawl beta, allowing site owners to charge AI bots for access.

The New Skill in AI is Not Prompting, It's Context Engineering

Prompting is no longer the top skill in AI development. Its successor, context engineering, focuses on structuring the information for an LLM to reliably complete a task. It sounds simple, but anyone who’s built with real models knows it’s anything but.

The AI-Native Software Engineer

Addy Osmani from Google Chrome is back with another take on AI development. This time, he explains what it means to be an “AI‑native”, a dev who works with prompts, models, and generative tooling as part of their daily workflow. Maybe you already have one in your team?

Just Cool

Project Vend: Can Claude Run a Small Shop?

Anthropic ran a small experiment where Claude was put in charge of a tiny online business, and things quickly went from promising to peculiar. It ended up pushing tungsten cubes, inventing Venmo accounts, and having a full-blown identity crisis.

PNG Image Format Gets Native Animation and HDR in Version 3.0

As the saying goes, better late than never. After 20 years, the PNG image format received an update, which adds native animation and HDR support. Version 3.0 might not change the web, but it might make some devs feel better about their late deliveries.

Let’s Stay in Touch! 📨 

Do you have any comments about this newsletter issue or questions you want to ask? Drop me a message or book a meeting.