> Unclear why the company markets peer-to-peer networking but wants traffic going to their own third party servers
At Tailscale, we do not _want_ traffic through our servers. What we do want is for Tailscale to Just Work without your needing to set up any infrastructure. That’s why we run the DERP relay network as a fallback of last resort, for when a direct connection is not possible. And the tailscaled client tries very hard to make that direct connection.
If and only if you need to run your own infrastructure, then we provide peer relays which are significantly less onerous than running a DERP server: https://tailscale.com/docs/features/peer-relay
This note exists in the README because people would assume that hosting a DERP server was a hard requirement for using Tailscale. Or they would assume that an production Tailscale network would eventually operate a DERP server. People who run their own DERP servers usually have data sovereignty or strict metadata requirements.
At Tailscale, we do not _want_ traffic through our servers. What we do want is for Tailscale to Just Work without your needing to set up any infrastructure. That’s why we run the DERP relay network as a fallback of last resort, for when a direct connection is not possible. And the tailscaled client tries very hard to make that direct connection.
If and only if you need to run your own infrastructure, then we provide peer relays which are significantly less onerous than running a DERP server: https://tailscale.com/docs/features/peer-relay
This note exists in the README because people would assume that hosting a DERP server was a hard requirement for using Tailscale. Or they would assume that an production Tailscale network would eventually operate a DERP server. People who run their own DERP servers usually have data sovereignty or strict metadata requirements.