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It's like we've flipped APIs on their heads - humans use tools to obtain the minimal data (just the recipe), while the bots make requests and receive the whole

It's like we've flipped APIs on their heads - humans use tools to obtain the minimal data (just the recipe), while the bots make requests and receive the whole dump of pointless, extraneous fluff in return.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
And here comes the business trick: API access is paid and restricted and requires you to enter a relationship with the data provider. Websites are purposefully made machine-unreadable, because otherwise a lot of people would use third-party scripts to avoid viewing ads and filler content. The Internet is the exact opposite of what it was meant to be. Instead of giving efficient access to high-quality information, it gives inefficient access to watered down, spread-down, low-quality interaction. Site after site, query after query, we all continuously pay a little tax with our time.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  This only really applies to the commercially-focused part of the Internet, though. Many Internet sites are still hosting academically-focused, non-commercial or broadly pro-social efforts, and those seem to be among the quickest adopters of Linked Open Data standards which are precisely meant to make content machine-readable, sometimes with standardized and freely available API-like endpoints for querying the underlying datastore.
- DeathArrow 7y ago
  That is because the ad revenue model. Not many people would pay for subscription and I don't know of other working revenue models.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    More people would be willing to pay for subscription, directly or indirectly, if ad revenue model didn't exist. Otherwise, "free with ads" outcompetes all. That's why I'm in favor of banning "free with ads" wholesale.
    - DeathArrow 7y ago
      I am not on a high moral ground to talk about ads.I am a web developer, yet I use ublock Origin. Now, that I have some money, I am willing to pay for subscriptions, because that would mean high quality content, not because of ads. However, there were times in my life when I barely had what to eat and I barely afforded to pay for the Internet connection and paying subscriptions was the last things I was willing to do. I suppose many of the 7 billion people living on Earth are poor enough to not afford paying for subscription.
  - rdtwo 7y ago
    A lot of the revenue models suck, if you pay they just put your name in a database sell it to everyone that offers still give you ads and make it impossible to cancel. I wanted to buy cooks illustrated for example but after reading about their business practices I chose not to.
- lioeters 7y ago
  > Websites are purposefully made machine-unreadable. This is a sad result of incentives which ruined RSS, semantic web, and the original purpose of the Internet: to effectively share and communicate information globally. Advertising (including propaganda and surveillance) and copyright are major forces in that ruination - not to say they don't have legitimate uses and benefits, but their concentrated financial interests conquered the domain. It's a kind of colonialism of public (cyber)space and collective mind. Tax is an apt analogy, since the power lies in the control of "media" in the most general sense, to force itself in every transaction between things and people. I believe "dis-intermediation" will help improve the free and direct flow of information. That is, to reduce the middle layers - the gate keepers, the walled gardens, intercepts (lawful or not), filters - by re-decentralizing the net.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

And here comes the business trick: API access is paid and restricted and requires you to enter a relationship with the data provider. Websites are purposefully made machine-unreadable, because otherwise a lot of people would use third-party scripts to avoid viewing ads and filler content. The Internet is the exact opposite of what it was meant to be. Instead of giving efficient access to high-quality information, it gives inefficient access to watered down, spread-down, low-quality interaction. Site after site, query after query, we all continuously pay a little tax with our time.

zozbot234 7y ago
This only really applies to the commercially-focused part of the Internet, though. Many Internet sites are still hosting academically-focused, non-commercial or broadly pro-social efforts, and those seem to be among the quickest adopters of Linked Open Data standards which are precisely meant to make content machine-readable, sometimes with standardized and freely available API-like endpoints for querying the underlying datastore.
DeathArrow 7y ago
That is because the ad revenue model. Not many people would pay for subscription and I don't know of other working revenue models.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  More people would be willing to pay for subscription, directly or indirectly, if ad revenue model didn't exist. Otherwise, "free with ads" outcompetes all. That's why I'm in favor of banning "free with ads" wholesale.
  - DeathArrow 7y ago
    I am not on a high moral ground to talk about ads.I am a web developer, yet I use ublock Origin. Now, that I have some money, I am willing to pay for subscriptions, because that would mean high quality content, not because of ads. However, there were times in my life when I barely had what to eat and I barely afforded to pay for the Internet connection and paying subscriptions was the last things I was willing to do. I suppose many of the 7 billion people living on Earth are poor enough to not afford paying for subscription.
- rdtwo 7y ago
  A lot of the revenue models suck, if you pay they just put your name in a database sell it to everyone that offers still give you ads and make it impossible to cancel. I wanted to buy cooks illustrated for example but after reading about their business practices I chose not to.
lioeters 7y ago
> Websites are purposefully made machine-unreadable. This is a sad result of incentives which ruined RSS, semantic web, and the original purpose of the Internet: to effectively share and communicate information globally. Advertising (including propaganda and surveillance) and copyright are major forces in that ruination - not to say they don't have legitimate uses and benefits, but their concentrated financial interests conquered the domain. It's a kind of colonialism of public (cyber)space and collective mind. Tax is an apt analogy, since the power lies in the control of "media" in the most general sense, to force itself in every transaction between things and people. I believe "dis-intermediation" will help improve the free and direct flow of information. That is, to reduce the middle layers - the gate keepers, the walled gardens, intercepts (lawful or not), filters - by re-decentralizing the net.