APIs Used To Give Us Access To Resources That Were Out Of Our Reach

I remember when almost all the APIs out there gave us developers access to things we couldn’t ever possibly get on our own. Some of it was about the network effect with the early Amazon and eBay marketplaces, or Flickr and Delicious, and then Twitter and Facebook. Then what really brought it home was going beyond the network effect, and delivering resources that were completely out of our reach like maps of the world around us, (seemingly) infinitely scalable compute and storage, SMS, and credit card payments. In the early days it really seemed like APIs were all about giving us access to something that was out of our reach as startups, or individuals.

While this still does exist, it seems like many APIs have flipped the table and it is all about giving them access to our personal and business data in ways that used to be out of their reach. Machine learning APIs are using parlour tricks to get access to our internal systems and databases. Voice enablement, entertainment, and cameras are gaining access to our homes, what we watch and listen to, and are able to look into the dark corners of our personal lives. Tinder, Facebook, and other platforms know our deep dark secrets, our personal thoughts, and have access to our email and intimate conversations. The API promise seems to have changed along the way, and stopped being about giving us access, and is now about giving them access.

I know it has always been about money, but the early vision of APIs seemed more honest. It seemed more about selling a product or service that people needed, and was more straight up. Now it just seems like APIs are invasive. Being used to infiltrate our professional and business worlds through our mobile phones. It feels like people just want access to us, purely so they can mine us and make more money. You just don’t see many Flickrs, Google Maps, or Amazon EC2s anymore. The new features in mobile devices we carry around, and the ones we install in our home don’t really benefit us in new and amazing ways. They seem to offer just enough to get us to adopt them, and install in our life, so they can get access to yet another data point. Maybe it is just because everything has been done, or maybe it is because it has all been taken over by the money people, looking for the next big thing (for them).

Oh no! Kin is ranting again. No, I’m not. I’m actually feeling pretty grounded in my writing lately, I’m just finding it takes a lot more work to find interesting APIs. I have to sift through many more emails from folks telling me about their exploitative API, before I come across something interesting. I go through 30 vulnerabilities posts in my feeds, before I come across one creative story about something platform is doing. There are 55 posts about ICOs, before I find an interesting investment in a startup doing something that matters. I’m willing to admit that I’m a grumpy API Evangelist most of the time, but I feel really happy, content, and enjoying my research overall. I just feel like the space has lost its way with this big data thing, and are using APIs to become more about infiltrating and extraction, that it is about delivering something that actually gives developers access to something meaningful. I just think we can do better. Something has to give, or this won’t continue to be sustainable much longer.