And by time, you really mean money. Because if you send a DMCA notice and the hosting company ignores you, the next step is court. Can they afford to get justice? How much does it cost for an indie artist to take a fairly anonymous website host to court? How do you serve a company that's anonymous thanks to Cloudflare?
File suit against John Does 1 through x. Then during the discovery phase, ask the court to compel Cloudflare to reveal everything they know about the alleged infringers. Amend the suit accordingly.
This can cost an indie artist as much of as little as they want, depending on whether they hire counsel or act pro se.
