The API-ization of everything

For consumers, "there's an app for that".

For businesses, "there's an API for that".

This is incredibly interesting. According to some people we're looking at unprecedented growth in the space. Right now there's roughly 9k public APIs. By 2019 that number could be over 100,000.

The question becomes though who does the integrations? Not everyone is a developer. The world needs plumbers for toilets and electricians for lights. I think the future of web development looks a lot like these industries. If a website is a house you'll hire a general contractor who will outsource to various experts in various APIs. At least that's our take on it.

The final sentence in the article really struck a chord with me...

> Where there is paper to push, a call to answer, or a purchase to approve, there is an API coming to replace it.

I've made a pretty decent living in life by following the old mantra that anywhere you see an Excel spreadsheet being used in a business process, there's an opportunity to exploit.

That idiom has now moved even further, at this point, and I don't know why I'm surprised to read in print what I think we've all probably intuited for some time now.

I've been attempting to embrace this for awhile, but I think it hit home the most last week, when I saw Joshua Beckman's article on a Personal API, and then started building one for everybody else[1].

It's been a fairly profound experience, and every subtle feature that I add, the more certain I am that it's the right path to be taking. Around every turn, I think of a new use case, or a new way to extend it, or a new type of service to integrate with -- and it baffles me that it takes us so long to make switches in thinking like this, even though we literally do it all the time as technologists.

[1] - I shouldn't be sharing the link, as the code isn't done, and it's likely to set your house on fire, but because it's relevant, the Personal API service is at http://personable.me. If you use it and it gives you herpes or something, shoot me an email (contact in my profile) and let me know. If it doesn't give you herpes, you can let me know that too.

> The question becomes though who does the integrations? Not everyone is a developer. The world needs plumbers for toilets and electricians for lights. I think the future of web development looks a lot like these industries. If a website is a house you'll hire a general contractor who will outsource to various experts in various APIs. At least that's our take on it.

I certainly believe that in some cases, companies will take advantage of APIs directly. In many others, however, I think you're more likely to see new businesses built on top of APIs. These businesses will develop the applications that companies use.

A key thing to consider is that a lot of functions that the new breed of API providers seek to provide are currently bundled with other products/services that customers don't necessarily need.

Example: Company A might be spending $xxx/month for a service that provides X, Y and Z when it only really values Z. If an API provider can aggregate enough demand around function Z so that third parties can cost-effectively build offerings around function Z only, Company A may now have the ability to find a service that meets its needs at a lower cost.

So while I'm sure there's going to be a healthy market for developers focused on API integration, I think the bigger opportunities are around taking advantage of these APIs to create more focused, cost-effective solutions. Think of it as the software industry's equivalent of "unbundling."