cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/93361
APIs for content sites must be free (🔥 Score: 152+ in 2 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/5GSi2 Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/5GSi2
*I don’t mind a site charging a nominal fee for API access. Either to cover the cost of API service itself, or more importantly to encourage API developers to be efficient when making API requests. But that’s hundreds to thousands of dollars a year, not millions.
Important caveat about the title from the article.
Is there a reasonable model for commercial sites to survive if their APIs are free?
The obvious answer is “charge a reasonable price”.
Many services like AccuWeather do that, including having a limited free tier for experimentation or niche applications.
The real problem though is that the value of the data isn’t just the cost of storing and making it available - in many cases its strategic. This is why e.g. the Google Maps API gives you pre-rendered map tiles and curated results, but you don’t get access to the raw data.
Ads, like Reddit does and reddit makes a ton of money. If they weren’t trying to make nft integrations or new TikTok and just had the staff it took to keep the lights on, it would be a stable successful business.
But the greedy execs want more money so they act like they have no choice but to squeeze the users for everything they can. This is their choice, not a necessity.
Ads and also offer an ad-free option that gives you an API key. So, if you want to use a 3rd party app to skirt ads you’d still have to pay the website. I think charging the user is a much fairer system than charging developers for API access.
