Reconciling How Reliable APIs Are While Also Embracing Tone Set By VC Investment

I have done a lot of reading in the last week, catching up on my monitoring of the API space. I have read a couple of posts about the reliability of APIs, and the overall viability of building applications, and businesses based upon them. A couple of the posts were focusing on the shuttering of ThinkUp, but a couple others were just part of the regular flow of these stories that question whether we can depend on APIs or not--nothing new, as this is a regular staple of bloggers and the wider tech blogosphere.

My official stance on this line of thinking is that I would not want to be building a business, and application that depends on leading API platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others, but I will happily build a business, applications, and system integration on APIs. You see, this isn't an API issue, it is a business and vendor viability issue. As with other sectors, there are badly behaved business, and there are well-behaved businesses--I try to choose to do business with the well-behaved one's (can't always achieve this, but I try).

I find the ongoing desire of the startup culture to point out how unreliable APIs are, while simultaneously supporting the overall business tone set by venture capital investment, often delusionally blind levels of support, is just not reconcilable. I'm not saying all VC investment is bad, so don't even take this down that road. I am saying that the quest for VC investment, and the shift in priorities once VC investment is acquired, then further shift with each additional round, and the final exit is setting a tone that is completely at odds with API reliability. 

The problem really begins when APIs become the front-end for this blame. If I depend on vendors for my brick and mortar store, and the delivery trucks don't reliably bring my products, I don't talk about how you can't depend on trucks--I find new vendors. Of course, I can't find new vendors if they can't be replaced like Twitter and Facebook, but this is a whole other conversation, although it is also one that is a symptom of the tone being set by the VC currents (this is a business conversation). Blaming APIs instead of raising questions about the business ethics bar being set by venture capital shows the blinding power of greed, as the tech community refuses to blame VC $$, and shifts this to being about the viability of APIs, because I will get my VC $$ some day too bro!

I am not saying APIs are always good. I'm just saying they aren't bad. Hell, they aren't neutral. They are a simply a reflection of the business behind them, as well as being a reflection of the industry they operate in. Stop blaming them for businesses not giving a shit about developers, and the end-users. Maybe we could start changing the tone by admitting the #1 priority is always set by VC $$, and not by our API community, or even our end-users and customers, and all this shit is out of whack.