There's a big difference between a company making that decision (an edge provider) vs a country doing that at the network level.

The rub comes in that nations, including the U.S., have laws about what they seem illegal content or services and reserve the right to force those to be blocked.

In Thailand that might be criticism of the king; in the U.S., pirated TV streams; in another country, that could be gambling sites.

Cloudflare seems to be trying to stop blocking that is trade protectionism, but is blocking overseas gambling sites trade protection or a legit state interest in protecting its citizens?

Why is there a “big difference”?

Cloudflare has a significant enough marketshare it doesn’t seem to make a meaningful difference whether it’s blocked at this or that level, for the vast majority of end users.