
The Api Paradox - DanielRibeiro
http://jacquesmattheij.com/api-paradox
======
richardjordan
The key is I distinguish between an API which IS the business - something like
a Twilio for example - and an API which lets you leverage a business's other
assets in a way that might one day be cut off - like a Twitter.

You are safe to build on top of something like Twilio because the service is
the API and API consumers are the customers. Consumers of Twitter's API are
not customers of Twitter and should not be surprised Teotter does not treat
them as such.

You are either the customer or the product. If you are neither you are in a
precarious position.

~~~
pc86
I think you're still in a precarious position as the product. Just look at
Facebook, Google et. al.

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DanielBMarkham
In startups, we often tell each other that "the idea is useless", that is,
startups are not about the technical details of the idea, they're about the
human-to-human interaction of people and your business.

This is also true about data. _Startups are not about the data_. A dozen
companies did what Dropbox did, but there was only one Dropbox. Everybody did
search, but there is only one Google, and so forth. Yes, people consume the
data, and yes, if you ask them they'll say that's why they're using your app,
but that's confirmation bias. They already use your app and enjoy it. When you
ask them, they just look at what the app does and repeat it in a way that
makes them sound the smartest.

So, presto chango, adding those two things together along with Jacques' essay
and we end up in a really weird spot: your startup may be about providing some
kind of massaged data to end users. So you find an API to do that. But the
guys providing the data, the heart of your app, have the least amount of
reward in the entire equation! Hell, in many cases they're providing data
willy-nilly out to just about everybody for free. To them, _the data is
worthless_ , yet you're building your business off them! Crazy world.

I have a personal news aggregator I wrote a couple of years ago,
<http://newspaper23.com> Nothing fancy, just rips some headlines, then rips
the plain text, then puts the plain text in json and makes a client-based
detached reader.

To provide the plaintext, I was using ViewText. Great folks. Put in an URL and
it'll give you a readable version of what's there.

But guess what? The ViewText guys didn't like my app ripping 50-60 articles a
day. So I lost this huge amount of functionality when they decided to start
rate-limiting. Now when you click an article, I bring up a frame and load it.
I wanted plain text, this was the entire reason for the app, and now the
critical thing I wanted is the exact thing that isn't working.

No big deal for my newspaper23 app, but it would be a freaking red alert if
this was something I was selling. API use, like walled gardens, are high-risk.

EDIT: Fixed possessive version of "Jacques"

~~~
jacques_chester
> _... along with Jacques essay ..._

Tiny, irrelevant nitpick.

Assuming that Jacques Mattheij is using the French pronounciation of his first
name, the possessive version of Jacques is Jacques's.

This is because in French the final letter of most words is silent, and in
English the possessive form of spoken nouns not ending in an audible "s" is
rendered in text as <singular>'s.

Phoenetically:

    
    
        zhahk -> zhahks
    

Not:

    
    
        zhahks -> zhahks.
    

Regards,

another Jacques.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Dang, I'm surrounded by Jacqueses! (Jacuqi?)

Thank you. I changed it to the Americanized form of possessive for words
ending in s (pronounced or not) I think this could go either way, but I
screwed it up no matter which choice an author might take.

~~~
jacques_chester
Well in all fairness, outside of _La Francophonie_ , "Jacques" is not a common
name. And for English speakers it's just chock full of exciting traps. My
favourite is putting 'c' and 'q' next to each other. In French that's a single
sound; in English it says "new syllable, please!

edit:

> _Jacqueses! (Jacuqi?)_

Jacqueses would be closest (-ii is a Latin pluralisation, Jacques comes from
Jacob which is Hebrew).

There's an impedance mismatch here: English stores plurality in the word,
French stores it in the sentence.

~~~
Gmo
I do think he is from Dutch origin though (Because he talked in the past about
one of his experience with QNX in the Netherlands)

~~~
jacques_chester
I was under the impression he was Belgian.

~~~
Gmo
Ha yes, also possible :)

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brazzy
Can we _please, pretty please with a cherry on top_ invent a new word for
"public-facing official API that exposes some of a company's core services"?

Because I get annoyed every time someone uses "APIs" to make general
statements while assuming that specific narrow meaning.

~~~
tod222
Okay, how about SPI, Service Programming Interface?

~~~
brazzy
I'd be happy with that. Now to get people to use it...

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etfb

        s/Api\'s/APIs/g
        s/Api/API/g
    

I know it's nitpicky, but the error makes it painful to read the article.
Obviously I'm blaming nobody, and to judge from his name the author is
probably fluent in more languages than me. But it's a user-friendliness thing.
It would help.

~~~
jacquesm
Thanks, I'll fix those.

Ok, fixed. Have an upvote :) & thanks again!

~~~
asmosoinio
I think you may have broken something while doing this?

I see this on your main page: \--- The Api Paradox APR 11TH, 2013 – layout:
post title: The API Paradox date: 2013-04-11 11:00 comments: true categories:
api development startups programming

    
    
       permalink: /api-paradox

\---

And the page at <http://jacquesmattheij.com/api-paradox> still says "Api", not
"API"?

~~~
jacquesm
A case of a misplaced dash in a markdown file...

Fixing, regenerating, deploying. eta 10 minutes, thank you very much!

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websitescenes
Great writeup. Agree with everything that was said. I am currently building a
service with much of the functionality based upon an API. The concerns the
author has mirror my own. Perhaps there should be an API code of ethics;
somewhat like open source licensing. Not one for regulation but it would be
nice to have some assurances for both parties involved.

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johns
I don't think the age of the company matters much. Incentives can be
aligned/misaligned at any age. I wrote a similar post not that long ago that
argues many of the same points (albeit with a more incendiary title)
[http://thenextweb.com/dd/2013/03/12/apis-are-dead-long-
live-...](http://thenextweb.com/dd/2013/03/12/apis-are-dead-long-live-apis/)

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asmosoinio
Great article!

typo: "If you do not heed that than chances..." than => then

~~~
jacquesm
Fixed, thank you!

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rolfvandekrol
I don't see why "It is possible to create a competing business using that very
same Api" is a potential warning sign. Anyone got some thoughts about that?

~~~
netcan
Becasue if they want to kill that competitor & take over their business, they
can just cut them off from the api.

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pjmlp
When are we going to stop calling API to web services?

It always comes to my mind operating system API when I read such titles.

~~~
j4_james
I always thought "protocol" was a more appropriate term for such internet-
based APIs. SMTP and HTTP are clearly protocols, and even APIs built on top of
HTTP are generally referred to as protocols in the standards world. For
example WebDAV (RFC4918) and AtomPub (RFC5023) are both considered protocols.

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milliams
For some reason it really annoyed me that he was spelling it "Api" rather than
"API".

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thebuccaneer
this begs for a 'no s--t sherlock' comment

~~~
SPSteinbeck
And your response begs for a downvote.

~~~
thebuccaneer
why? for pointing out that, in 2013, someone had the revelation that if you
fish in someone elses pond, be careful... because they might cut off your
access?

