Nelson's Weblog: culture / apis-for-content-sites-must-be-free
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    • cxx@lemmy.world
      4·
      1 year ago

      The obvious answer is “charge a reasonable price”.

      Many services like AccuWeather do that, including having a limited free tier for experimentation or niche applications.

      The real problem though is that the value of the data isn’t just the cost of storing and making it available - in many cases its strategic. This is why e.g. the Google Maps API gives you pre-rendered map tiles and curated results, but you don’t get access to the raw data.

    • hyperhopper@lemmy.world
      3·
      1 year ago

      Ads, like Reddit does and reddit makes a ton of money. If they weren’t trying to make nft integrations or new TikTok and just had the staff it took to keep the lights on, it would be a stable successful business.

      But the greedy execs want more money so they act like they have no choice but to squeeze the users for everything they can. This is their choice, not a necessity.

      • ThreeHalflings@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        If I write a third party app, then I can filter out any ads you pass me, or I can make it easy for a user to do at arm’s length from me by allowing plugins. This is exactly what’s happening with reddit third party apps.

        I don’t think it’s as black and white as you’re making out.

        • WindInTrees@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          I would expect that not filtering ads (unless the user pays the content site) could be an enforceable stipulation to anyone using the APIs, no? I would also think that ads could be served through the common “get new posts” API in an opaque manner pretty easily.

      • joelthelion@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        Exactly this. They keep repeating that they aren’t profitable. But the key question is: why do they need 2,000 employees? IIRC, before they were acquired by Facebook, Whatsapp managed to handle a billion+ users with 50 people.