> This is the exact opposite of what people usually do... Indeed, because the people that actually build stuff figured that none of these constraints are benef

> This is the exact opposite of what people usually do... Indeed, because the people that actually build stuff figured that none of these constraints are beneficial absent a magical smart client that will never exist. People implement HTTP-RPC APIs. They call the result "REST API" for buzzword compliance, which turns out to be quite important. The nitpickers that insist on bringing more REST concepts like HATEOAS into the API only make things worse to use. It's a similar situation to Alan Kay lamenting that most "object-oriented" language don't implement what he had in mind. The people that get stuff done just don't care. The people that do care build exotic systems that the rest of us just don't want to use.