Rather than APIs for everything I'd prefer that we figure out (technically, socially, politically, economically) how to separate data and applications on the "web platform" in the same way that we do on a local OS. Keeping files as distinct from the applications that use them has been a pretty effective design principle.
APIs for content sites must be free
61–70 of 300 posts
Re: APIs for content sites must be free
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
but you can access every single shitpost from the website, so why not from API? it's lighter
Most of the time you dont just expose your internal api routes to the world. You need to write curated public facing routes that dont include certain schema or records. Takes time to write and maintain that different set of endpoints
Not really. Your HTML is, quite literally, a degenerate form of an API. The simplest way to offer a content API is to offer an alternative endpoint that serves the same stuff as your normal one, except without all the bullshit (er, beautifully design, interactive frontend).
Re: APIs for content sites must be free
#63I've found myself resisting posting comments on Reddit recently - things like answers to simple questions people have about SQLite - partly because I don't want to cross the picket line but also because I realize that I was relying on a very light social contract that was in place there: I would share my knowledge for free, in exchange for which I knew that I was contributing to a larger dataset that myself and other…
> I was relying on a very light social contract that was in place there
This was never a social contract so I actually wonder how you or the original blog poster ever got to that idea. In fact, it's explicitly not the social contract if you ever read the Terms of Service of sites like Twitter and/or Reddit.
Re: APIs for content sites must be free
#64I've found myself resisting posting comments on Reddit recently - things like answers to simple questions people have about SQLite - partly because I don't want to cross the picket line but also because I realize that I was relying on a very light social contract that was in place there: I would share my knowledge for free, in exchange for which I knew that I was contributing to a larger dataset that myself and other…
Not to worry, you can still search google/etc., which scrapes Reddit, or Reddit itself through its native search. No need to use an API explicitly to access content like that.
Re: APIs for content sites must be free
#65Re: APIs for content sites must be free
#66I've found myself resisting posting comments on Reddit recently - things like answers to simple questions people have about SQLite - partly because I don't want to cross the picket line but also because I realize that I was relying on a very light social contract that was in place there: I would share my knowledge for free, in exchange for which I knew that I was contributing to a larger dataset that myself and other…
> I was relying on a very light social contract that was in place there This was never a social contract so I actually wonder how you or the original blog poster ever got to that idea. In fact, it's explicitly not the social contract if you ever read the Terms of Service of sites like Twitter and/or Reddit.
You're thinking of a legal contract. A social contract is what two sides do in practice in order to not piss the other off.
Re: APIs for content sites must be free
#67I've found myself resisting posting comments on Reddit recently - things like answers to simple questions people have about SQLite - partly because I don't want to cross the picket line but also because I realize that I was relying on a very light social contract that was in place there: I would share my knowledge for free, in exchange for which I knew that I was contributing to a larger dataset that myself and other…
Reddit not long ago announced a plan to delete all comments from a submission whenever an OP deleted their submission (ordinarily only the OP's post would be deleted).
There was quite a lot of pushback since the consensus was many comments aren't just for the benefit of the OP but everyone (in fact sometimes the OP doesn't even appreciate the comments they receive but are nevertheless useful to others).
So Reddit walked it back but it does show many of the site's users are conscious of the broader utility of comments outside of just the smaller contextual interactions.
Re: APIs for content sites must be free
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I was relying on a very light social contract that was in place there This was never a social contract so I actually wonder how you or the original blog poster ever got to that idea. In fact, it's explicitly not the social contract if you ever read the Terms of Service of sites like Twitter and/or Reddit.
You're thinking of a legal contract. A social contract is what two sides do in practice in order to not piss the other off.
I know exactly what a social contract is, and it's always superseded by a legal contract (which the ToS sort-of is, though it would have to go through the courts if challenged). Given that the ToS explicitly says that Reddit et al. can do whatever they want with your data, the idea that there's a social contract there is wishful thinking.
Re: APIs for content sites must be free
#69The trouble with a free API is that someone can write a $1 client that hides all the ads (the number one requested feature), and now your website has no income.
An ad-supported website has to get paid. On the web there is at least some stuff they can do to detect ad blockers, or show ads in sneaky ways that change over time and are hard to block.
Re: APIs for content sites must be free
#70Related note in the sidebar: NY State is considering a bill to require social media companies have open API access[0]. I have to wonder if this is something either PIRG or FUTO Tech/Louis Rossman are pushing for - in which case, good on them.