Among other things I am responsible for my employer's REST API. I don't really see where an API is inherently political. It could be, if you're trying to get lo

Among other things I am responsible for my employer's REST API. I don't really see where an API is inherently political. It could be, if you're trying to get lots of different organizations to buy into it as a quasi standard (OAuth?), but most APIs I encounter simply provide a decent separation of concerns so external users can do what they need to do without knowing what's happening on the other side. There's also the time and money aspect to it. The API isn't usually the top priority for most companies, so the API usually ends up somewhere between a crude interface and a mirror image of what's in the packaged product. In most cases, its definitely a "don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough" situation.