Cloudflare is not an ISP. They have other services they sell. Maybe they're selling your data, maybe not. I honestly have not read their agreements and terms, but it's not nearly as obvious that you're the product as something like Google
So this company based in the US which provides internet services is not an internet service provider.
Given that they are funded and run by the same forces american parastical capitalism provides I would trust them as much as I'd trust google or alphabet.
I'll continue to route my DNS to quad-nine over mullvad over my specifically chosen ISP, and everything on my network does that as I can easily intercept and redirect udp/53.
The weak point are treacherous devices which use DoH which is a constant fight to block.
They provide network services on the internet, but unless I'm missing some product they don't list on their website they do not provide actual basic IP internet connectivity for businesses, everything they sell is some service on top of your existing ISP services
That's just one category of stuff that ISPs do. In the context of "who do I pay to get Internet at home", cloudflare is not an option, but in the context of the internet itself they are one. Hetzner, for example, is an ISP that mainly provides server hosting. There are companies that only provide Internet service at data centers too.
And google don't provide actual basic IP internet connectivity for businesses. They are still an american company that provides internet services and uses and sells your data.
Why would cloudflare, built from the same corporate background, be any more trustworthy?
Using the definition of "do they provide IP transit to anyone", yes, they offer services which do this, Tunnels is one, there may be others, but this would mean they are technically and legally classified as a service provider (and hence also enjoy Section 230 protection) in that case.
Some may also consider reverse proxying/caching to be providing transit service, but I'm not sure if the majority of people would agree on that.
