I have spent a lot of time questioning APIs. It is what I do. Questioning and interrogating APIs is my way of pushing back on the machine. I have made a living doing this from inside the machine for the last fifteen years. I wanted to intimately understand how the machine works, including the technology, business, and politics of it. I get that now, but after seeing so many APIs go from good to bad, and seeing APIs being wielded by this administration right alongside AI, it is a sign. I don’t feel like API Evangelist can safely operate from within the machine while also keeping from losing our soul and credibility.
As I have for fifteen years I will write my way through this moment, but with AI and API being wielded as it is in Washington D.C., but the technology sector wholesale supporting this or willfully turning a blind eye to it, I just don’t feel like I can safely evangelize for APIs, or for the people who are producing and consuming them. There just aren’t enough conversations and nutrients to keep the stories flowing from this position within the machine. It has always taken work to drum up stories and to get people talking and sharing stories in the API space, but with the shift to artificial intelligence there just isn’t any nutrients to go around, interesting people to share their stories, and much care for the craft, people, or telling stories that matter to the humans—only to the machine.
I will keep watching this layer, and will be maintaining existing and entertaining new consulting relationships to help those who are interested in doing the work, but I will pack up all the APIs, policies, rules, and other bits off to the side where I’ll keep doing the work, but focus the stories and conversation to a more “below the line” or “outside the machine” perspective. APIs will still be the focus, but producing and consuming them will play second fiddle to how those APIs are being wielded to manipulate end-users. What does this mean? I do not know. It means I need to get to work talking to people who are the end-users of the applications being powered by APIs. It means I need to not lead with API, but lead with how your average person sees technology.
API Evangelist has always been about understanding the relationship between technology and humans. I have always focused on the people, but I focused on the humans who were producing APIs, with an emphasis on the developers who were consuming APIs. The latest authoritarian push in Washington D.C, with the obsequious support from the wider technology sector has left me short on people whom I am interested in supporting and championing. All of this makes it time for me to pack things up (again) and change course, but API Evangelist is who I am and what I know. It is my business and personal identity. I know this space. I just need to move downstream a bit to find people I can talk with, learn from, and continue to make sense of our relationship with technology—which is almost alway transacted via API (even AI). As usual, I will write my way through this, but I will have to do the work to engage with people in real-life to understand what our relationship with technology is in this moment.
