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Never build a business that depends on an api.

johns 14y ago
There are a lot of different types of APIs (partner, SaaS, internal/mobile, infrastructure, etc), many of which you can use as a part of building a business. Never build a business freeloading off another business. The social and consumer API providers are realizing that their APIs don't drive value to their core business objectives (selling subscriptions or ads). APIs are a means to an end. The end has to benefit both sides. Don't blame the means for faulty ends.
- sirclueless 14y ago
  There's two very different kinds of APIs. One is a service, the "aS" in PaaS, SaaS, and many others, where what you are getting is programmatic access to the thing people want to sell you anyways. A service might be very valuable, but it's probably replaceable. If someone is geolocating IPs for you, hosting images for you, handling blog comments for you, this is all stuff someone else could do for you if your first-choice API turns into yet another /dev/null. The other kind of API is access to specific content and/or networks. This is a whole different ball of wax, and I would be wary of doing anything significant with an API that is only valuable because of the value of the data that is coming over it. You have to ask yourself very carefully why they are giving you access. Most likely it is because they think you will drive growth to them. Once that motivation is gone because they have reached scale, they will stop treating you as valuable, and start to see all the value you generate as value that is not being sent their way: they will start rent-seeking. Basically, ask yourself: if some API that you use were to close up shop, would your company no longer have an existential purpose? If you want to give people directions to a brick-and-mortar store, and Google Maps closed itself off tomorrow, would your company cease to exist? Hopefully the answer is no, you would just have to spend some resources and switch to someone else or build it yourself.

johns 14y ago

There are a lot of different types of APIs (partner, SaaS, internal/mobile, infrastructure, etc), many of which you can use as a part of building a business. Never build a business freeloading off another business. The social and consumer API providers are realizing that their APIs don't drive value to their core business objectives (selling subscriptions or ads). APIs are a means to an end. The end has to benefit both sides. Don't blame the means for faulty ends.

sirclueless 14y ago
There's two very different kinds of APIs. One is a service, the "aS" in PaaS, SaaS, and many others, where what you are getting is programmatic access to the thing people want to sell you anyways. A service might be very valuable, but it's probably replaceable. If someone is geolocating IPs for you, hosting images for you, handling blog comments for you, this is all stuff someone else could do for you if your first-choice API turns into yet another /dev/null. The other kind of API is access to specific content and/or networks. This is a whole different ball of wax, and I would be wary of doing anything significant with an API that is only valuable because of the value of the data that is coming over it. You have to ask yourself very carefully why they are giving you access. Most likely it is because they think you will drive growth to them. Once that motivation is gone because they have reached scale, they will stop treating you as valuable, and start to see all the value you generate as value that is not being sent their way: they will start rent-seeking. Basically, ask yourself: if some API that you use were to close up shop, would your company no longer have an existential purpose? If you want to give people directions to a brick-and-mortar store, and Google Maps closed itself off tomorrow, would your company cease to exist? Hopefully the answer is no, you would just have to spend some resources and switch to someone else or build it yourself.