No, I'm specifically making the point that content negotiation and RESTful "APIs" aren't really APIs, they are just serving data up in the same way that you are

No, I'm specifically making the point that content negotiation and RESTful "APIs" aren't really APIs, they are just serving data up in the same way that you are serving HTML up. The whole API thing is just a social construction we have with these bizarre conventions around it. It may be necessary to have big complicated APIs some of the time. Great. Mostly, it's not necessary: you have a URI structure, you have pointers between records (hyperlinks), you just need a machine readable representation of the data. HTTP and web architecture already does that. You don't need a special fancy API with things I need to learn and understand. On reading your clarification: okay. You term what I call "data" as a "query result". Then it's a merely semantic distinction you are drawing. And, I'd suggest, probably an irrelevant one from the perspective of the data consumer. There's a URL for a resource. I want the stuff there. I don't care whether it's in a database or how it's stored. That's just plumbing.