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Because there’s no penalty or cost, and little to no competitive advantage. Only programmers ever see API documentation, and they are not in a position to force
by gregjor 5y ago
Because there’s no penalty or cost, and little to no competitive advantage. Only programmers ever see API documentation, and they are not in a position to force better documentation. If good API documentation provides a competitive advantage companies will pay attention to it. Until then they will continue to concentrate on dark mode and emojis.
- ezekg 5y ago> If good API documentation provides a competitive advantage companies will pay attention to it. I think this is already happening. I commonly compare API services based on their docs. For my own API business in particular, I've had numerous customers tell me they chose us because of good documentation.
- gregjor 5y agoDepends on the service. If the company sells to developers, or requires developers to extend their customer base (e.g. Stripe) they will put more effort in. If developers seem incidental to their service and customers they may not (e.g. Zoom, Google Drive).