The phrase "hypermedia as the engine of application state" is something Fielding came up with when philosophizing about the architectural style of the Web circa

The phrase "hypermedia as the engine of application state" is something Fielding came up with when philosophizing about the architectural style of the Web circa 2000 and how it differed from other architectural styles. That's all it is. That it's "too unstructured for computers to automatically use" is not a failure case, because there was no objective other than to describe how the Web worked. He was developing a taxonomy—to guide how things should (continue to) work based on the world as it already is—not trying to invent something new and admonish people that "Hey, this is how we really ought to be doing things"—unlike the tone of many articles that you've probably read about the promises of this whole "REST" thing, right? If you expect it to be anything else at this point, then you are sure to end up disappointed, because you are setting yourself up for failure by thinking that it's something that it's not. Kinda sucks that an entire industry misled you into thinking otherwise, but that is its wont...