61–63 of 63 posts
How much do you charge when people perform the same action in your UI? (I'm going to go out on a limb and guess $0.)
Is the data you're trying to hold hostage yours? (No.)
You should not charge people just to access their own data. That's abusive. Charge only for extreme usage, like poorly written sync programs, maybe, maybe for realtime synchronization. Let them access their data so they are comfortable using your product more, and charge them for the value your product gives them.
Abusive? I know that HN has a very pro FOSS culture, which, with some users, seems to extend to the expectation that companies and products should exist out of the goodness of developers’ hearts. But charging willing users for an API that costs money to maintain is “abusive”?
Err, what? I don't think we've read the same thread. It's shock-full of people trying to justify this kind of behaviour, presumably in a vain effort to feel less bad about their own abuses.
> seems to extend to the expectation that companies and products should exist out of the goodness of developers’ hearts.
Corporate shills and bootlickers seem to have this weird misconception that companies and products just naturally deserve to exist and impose themselves on society.
> But charging willing users for an API that costs money to maintain is “abusive”?
The API already exists.
Without more detail I would respond as a customer and builder: It is my data - if I am paying for a service already the idea of paying more to access my data differently is unattractive. If you're using the API yourself it means the cost of building is complete so there is no additional cost. How often are the users, power users, abusers going to access the API? I am thinking either charge more for your service and i…
> If you're using the API yourself it means the cost of building is complete Opening up an internal API with a know client that you own to the whole world introduces more complexity around authentication, rate limiting, traffic inspection, etc, that OP probably doesn't need to worry about now.