The web from a technological vantage point was intriguing. HTML served up over HTTP using a client-server approach proved to have a number of beneficial use cases across different industries and layers of our society. Evolving that approach through content negotiation to serve up HTML, text, images, videos, PDF, and other media, but also XML and now JSON, has allowed us to evolve the web and support a number of different applications, but it is something that is being hindered by the business and politics of the technology sector.
HTTP APIs allow us to build on top of the existing success of the web. HTTP APIs are cheap and easy to understand. And despite popular belief, HTTP APIs also scale to global capacity. HTTP APIs can provide any digital resource or capability you need to power a business, and these resources and capabilities can be stitched together into a mix of experiences across desktop, web, mobile, device, network, and artificial intelligence applications. You can make APIs free to use, you can meter their usage, and easily control who has access and how much they can use. You can also offer different APIs depending on the country or region someone is operating in.
There is a wealth of open source tooling and specifications for delivering HTTP APIs inside and outside of the enterprise. There is a wealth of open source tooling and specifications for enabling consumers of HTTP APIs to integrate them into their applications. The original technology of serving HTML pages with images and media to end-users via browsers, as well as the evolution of it using HTTP APIs serving up JSON represents what you need to operate a business today, and are actively being negotiated and iterated upon to sensibly and pragmatically support what we’ll need tomorrow. Over the last 30 years of the web, and the last 20 or so doing APIs, we’ve managed to do good until the business and politics of things began driving things into the ditch.
The greatest thing to have changed since I started studying APIs full time is the reason we do APIs. The direct value of offering an API and the synergy between API producer and consumer from 2005 through 2015 was healthier than they are now. Buy 2015 money began changing the business of APIs and as more money was made, but also more power accumulated around the web and API-powered applications, the politics of not just APIs, but technology, and government elections changed. The money behind the applications, but also the companies, and the marketplaces surrounding the companies has grown to blockchain levels of insanity. The reasons why you do APIs are so far removed from the APIs themselves, the producer and consumer alignment is out of whack and susceptible to a variety of narratives, volatility, and snake oils. This is all stuff that APIs ain’t gonna fix. This is all stuff that technology is not going to fix.
Ultimately I am unsure of where to go next. I am just writing my way through things as I have for 15 years. Things are out of balance. We have complexified the technology and business of APIs to levels that make the politics of APIs just a funhouse of mirrors. Conversations around artificial intelligence, which depend on APIs, has significantly diminished the potential APIs have when it comes tot he next iteration of the web. AI reflects the walled garden approach we’ve seen from tech giants, but one that is on steroids. There isn’t a single API discussion in service of AI that I am interested in and reflects the accessibility, democratization, and reciprocity I have known and loved when it comes to HTTP APIs. The money has changed things for the worse. The financialization of our lives using APIs has diminished the promise of the web and APIs. It isn’t a little guys game anymore—you have to have resources, a bullhorn, and be willing to hustle everyone to stay ahead.
The OG web and APIs had a lot more humanity in them. Today’s discourse does not. Not a lot with APIs has changed with APIs since 2010, except there is more money involved, there is less opportunity for smaller players to make an impact, and things have gotten more complex, but not for any particular reason than to sell you something new. It all really just makes me sad. The fun got zapped from the room. Things have gotten a lot less interesting. I’d rather be focusing on new and interesting ways to design and develop HTTP API resources with folks, and building interesting applications that enrich our personal and professional lives. What we are doing now isn’t that. I know the AI people will dismiss me as irrelevant and mistaken about what the future holds, but I’d say that those of you technologists are completely blind to the business and politics you are in service of, and the people driving the current climate of business and politics driven by technology never understood or gave a shit about doing APIs in any meaningful way.
