I think it's a little silly to make a vast conspiracy about this.
When you put yourself in the shoes of the people on the product teams building the apps and maintaining the APIs, it's easy to see this for what it's much more likely to be: a hack that was implemented so that someone could leave the office at a reasonable hour.
When you put yourself in the shoes of the people on the product teams building the apps and maintaining the APIs, it's easy to see this for what it's much more likely to be: a hack that was implemented so that someone could leave the office at a reasonable hour.