This article answers its own question: "The situation is hopeless, but not serious." REST vs HATEOS vs HTTP API vs Web Service It's not serious and it doesn't

This article answers its own question: "The situation is hopeless, but not serious." REST vs HATEOS vs HTTP API vs Web Service It's not serious and it doesn't matter that much. If I'm writing an API, I probably want to give people or systems access to my data and services. Missing links will be a mild inconvenience when compared to things like bad naming, inconsistent data structures, confusing error codes or domain complexity.