Comment by dlcarrier

Comment by dlcarrier 2 days ago

4 replies

Not only is abandonment of the API possible, but hosts may restrict it on purpose, requiring paid access to use acessability/usability tools.

For example, Reddit encouraged those tools to use the API, then once it gained traction, they began charging exorbitant fees effectively blocking every blocking such tools.

culi 2 days ago

That's a good point. Anyone who used the API properly were left with egg on their face and anyone who misused the site and just scraped HTML ended up unharmed

  • ryandrake 2 days ago

    Web developers in general have a horrible track record with many notable "rug pulls" and "lol the old API is deprecated, use the new one" behaviors. I'm not surprised that people don't trust APIs.

    • dolmen 2 days ago

      This isn't about people.

      • KK7NIL 2 days ago

        APIs are always about people, they're an implicit contract. This is also why API design is largely the only difficult part of software design (there are tough technical challenges too sometimes, but they are much easier to plan for and contain).