The biggest mistake web devs ever made was focusing on corporate-owned APIs instead of on new and innovative open protocols.
I don't care how all-encompassing Big Social becomes -- or whether Google or Apple can keep their market valuations ongoing.
Those "critical" APIs can be yoinked at any moment.
However, SMTP and HTTP have now been used for decades. So why not build on the next generation of open protocols?
Also, when Twitter yoinked API access from 3rd party developers, that convinced VCs that continuing a bait-and-switch with APIs was lucrative.
That they could fund the next potential monopoly.
The result was competing walled gardens -- and that has hindered the Internet's development, perhaps set it back for decades.
People often forget that a core selling point of Web 2.0 was interoperability.
Yay! You could embed! You could build plug-ins and themes!
But so much of it was a mirage because too much of Web 2.0 was built off corporate-owned APIs instead of open protocols.
Chris Trottier
phzle