
Ask HN: What service should have an API, but doesn't? - tomjcleveland
I often have ideas for fun projects that hit a brick wall when I discover that a popular service I _assumed_ had an API in fact does not.<p>Examples: Netflix, Kindle, ClassPass, OpenTable.<p>Often these services do have _some_ kind of API—but it&#x27;s super limited and&#x2F;or only available to huge enterprises.<p>I&#x27;m curious if other people on HN run into this problem—and if so, what&#x27;s the #1 service you wish had a powerful, startup-friendly API?
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unlinked_dll
If I ran a popular consumer facing service, I would definitely _not_ be
inclined to provide a developer API. That's a risky business proposition. And
as a startup I wouldn't hitch my business to a developer API on such a
service, which is an even riskier business proposition.

That said, I'd love it if Netflix or Pornhub provided their VOD infrastructure
as a service. There's a lot of space for content platforms that don't compete
with them directly, but are infeasible to get off the ground.

I think a better question then isn't, "which services should have APIs?" but
"which companies should provide IaaS?"

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yen223
Online banks.

I can understand why securely exposing an API for banking details would be
challenging, but I would love a way to access my account statements and daily
transactions programatically, without having to pass my credentials to shady
3rd-party apps.

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AznHisoka
This is an easy one for me: Google Search

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Raed667
How would they display ads in an API form?

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AznHisoka
I'd be interested in just the organic search results returned in API format.

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surds
That would be great, but they would never do that. It would make studying the
organic search results much easier, allowing folks to better reverse-engineer
the search algo; and game the system to a greater extent.

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AznHisoka
Yep, that's true. The OP asked what I wanted. I know it's a pipe dream.

