Hilarious indeed! The first thing I thought of with this project is actually AirBnB, because the sort/filter/map view is so terrible and missing features. AirBnB captures data on a bunch of stuff, but doesn't make it possible to search for in the UI (ever want a property with a lake view or a sauna? AirBnB knows which ones have those things, but they won't let you look for them!)
AirBnB doesn't have an official API but changes the tags so often that scrapers people put up on Github go out of date quickly. Now I can run this whenever I want to have actual search functionality (instead of the hobbled crap available on the website) and ensure that whatever flavor of API is available on the website that day is easily queryable!
Easier to modify requests vs doing it using browser tools. The ability to search for the things I mentioned is actually there, but only via an undocumented url parameter that erases itself every time you pan the map. Doing it via REST calls is much easier than trying to do it in the UI.
AirBnB doesn't have an official API but changes the tags so often that scrapers people put up on Github go out of date quickly. Now I can run this whenever I want to have actual search functionality (instead of the hobbled crap available on the website) and ensure that whatever flavor of API is available on the website that day is easily queryable!