No, for the precise reason that whatever you think your product is, your users and customers value its data above everything else because it powers their own co

No, for the precise reason that whatever you think your product is, your users and customers value its data above everything else because it powers their own conversations and decision processes. With the explanation, if you have a product without an API, I guarantee you have a conceptual gap in the value you provide and why. If your product/data is valuable, users will put up with the most terrible UXs, but if you have the shiniest UX with gaps in the underlying useful data, you've basically got a videogame. Then you need to look at what elitism is. It's not about requiring skills or physical competence to do something, as that would mean anyone who practised something would be a so-called elitist, which is absurd. Elitism is a way people without actual status affect or pretend to be as a way to convince others without status that they are elevated. Elitism is being a poseur. When you are a member of an actual elite, there is negative value in signalling it to an outsider, the only value is to signal your membership to other insiders. So someone who makes effort to signal their status to an outsider would therefore be an elitist. Viewed that way, an API is not a signal, it is tool that literally refines the value of your data to that which is truly useful. My next product is starting as an API, and then I'm going to add UX skins to it because if it doesn't attract users, it won't be because of the trendy symbolism in the UX, it will be because it doesn't present the real meaningful data they need. Please, make more APIs, as value for effort on all sides, it's the best possible solution.