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Ask HN: What service should have an API, but doesn't?

6 points by tomjcleveland ↗ HN
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.

Examples: Netflix, Kindle, ClassPass, OpenTable.

Often these services do have _some_ kind of API—but it's super limited and/or only available to huge enterprises.

I'm curious if other people on HN run into this problem—and if so, what's the #1 service you wish had a powerful, startup-friendly API?

7 comments

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AznHisoka
This is an easy one for me: Google Search
Raed667
How would they display ads in an API form?
AznHisoka
I'd be interested in just the organic search results returned in API format.
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.
AznHisoka
Yep, that's true. The OP asked what I wanted. I know it's a pipe dream.
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?"

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.