Maybe I've looked at too many APIs, but I feel that APIs are very telling of the overall culture of a company. APIs that are trusting, tend to open up a full stack of APIs, including POST, PUT (or PATCH), and DELETE functionality, giving developers access to all, or nearly all functionality available via a platform.
I do not feel that platforms are required to open up everything, but the amount of what they open up, does tells a lot about how a company is thinking. While I find many companies are not fully up to speed on the benefits a modern API management strategy, and the control it gives you over resources and API consumers, I think many just do not trust anyone outside the firewall, and think they know best when it comes to everything.
APIs are not for every company, and I do not think everybody should have any API, but I do want API providers to be aware of how telling their approach will be about their motives behind having an API. You should not see this as a negative lesson, it will help you think about your company from the outside-in, this is one of the most important aspects of the API journey in my opinion.
A journey you should begin as soon as possible, if you think you can make it work in a positive way.
