[cnj]

I think your criticism of the term is somewhat valid, in the end these are just back-ends with APIs :)

However, the point the platforms are trying to make is that their APIs have been written with the explicit purpose of building a frontend ontop of them later on.

A lot of the old-school platforms have some APIs as well, but they are meant to e.g. import products or export orders. They are not meant to implement a frontend on top of, because they have a frontend engine as part of their monolith, and many functions you need to write a proper frontend will not be available through their APIs.

So the term "headless" means "we have APIs, and they are designed for you to build a frontend on top of".

[intrasight]

Thank you. The only usage of that term that I was familiar with was that given here:

https://www.howtogeek.com/660841/what-is-a-headless-server/

A “headless” computer system is just one without a local interface. There’s no monitor (“head”) plugged into it. There’s also no keyboard, mouse, touchscreen, or other local interface for controlling it.

[lagrange77]

Well said!