

Charging for APIs...SRSLY? - mbleigh
http://blog.opperator.com/post/13454509744/do-not-charge-for-apis?utm_source=hackernews&utm_content=charging-for-apis

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jollyjerry
I agree with many of the points brought up. It's strange to me that Facebook
would consider a practice that limits the number of eyeballs on their pages.
For a social network, the real competitive advantage is the number of users
and how engaged they are. While they may make more money in the short term,
cutting into the developer ecosystem (healthy as it is now) will cut into
their reputation and eventually their bottom line.

On the other hand, I could see them charging just the top 1% of the heaviest
API users. In that case, it would fit Michael's cases for when charging for an
API is ok.

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vyrotek
_When is Charging for an API OK? - So when is charging for an API OK? When
your API is your product. That’s it, that’s the only time._

Facebook's user data is their product. And their API is a way to quickly get
consumable access to that data.

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mbleigh
True, their user data is their product, but the Forbes article wasn't talking
about charging for Facebook Graph API access, it was talking about charging
for Facebook-as-SSO-provider. Facebook Connect is the means by which Facebook
can mine even more data about their users which allows them to increase the
value of their product.

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vyrotek
Facebook Connect grants your site access to more of Facebook's 'product'.
Regardless, in my opinion An SSO/Identity Service seems like a reasonable API
to charge for. Developers won't go elsewhere until the products, err users go
elsewhere first. Facebook's value is always going to be about data and who has
access to it.

