Nelson's Weblog: culture / apis-for-content-sites-must-be-free
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    • cxx@lemmy.world
      3·
      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.

      • joelthelion@lemmy.world
        2·
        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.

      • ThreeHalflings@lemmy.world
        0·
        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.

        • deejay4am@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          Well if you violate TOS then your API key gets revoked. If apps want access then they can play by the rules; I think that’s fair enough.

          Now, what’s fair when it comes to ad placement is a whole other can of worms…

        • WindInTrees@lemmy.world
          0·
          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.

          • ThreeHalflings@lemmy.world
            1·
            1 year ago

            Firstly, to enforce that reddit now has to police everyone who uses their api, and engage in the inevitable game of whackamole.

            Secondly, I know I didn’t see any reddit ads when I was using Boost for Reddit, so it’s actively happening. I was seeing Boost’s banner ad down the bottom of the app when I wasn’t on my home network.

            Lastly, I’m not convinced that surviving on ad revenue is a viable model after seeing dozens of companies go under, if fail to escape the red, either trying to get by on ad revenue or trying to switch to subscription modules because it wasn’t working.

    • ShakeThatYam@lemmy.world
      3·
      1 year ago

      Ads and also offer an ad-free option that gives you an API key. So, if you want to use a 3rd party app to skirt ads you’d still have to pay the website. I think charging the user is a much fairer system than charging developers for API access.