Take it from someone who watched with interest, Reddit and Twitter did not get big due to open APIs. They got their first big steps before they even had APIs...

Take it from someone who watched with interest, Reddit and Twitter did not get big due to open APIs. They got their first big steps before they even had APIs... In the first year of twitters launch it was in the news in the UK at 300k users in press releases about how it was a "new form of communication" etc... 2008 was actually when the original set of API-laden websites began to fade because with the recession, we could not have nice things be free so much. Many API services fell into disrepair in 2009, certainly the peak of APIs for the UK was around 2008. Check out Tom Scotts video on this for a picture of the open API internet many people thought would occur (and which did exist in some places until FAANG began to productise and dominate and use accounts across products which do not incentivize APIs). Yes it is true open network graphs/facebook etc had some API access, but the APIs before were more single purpose and numerous; facebook lets you explore their network and to some extent data, but that's not the same as the useful APIs that became restricted, paid or were cut in the aftermath of the recession.