[mittermayr]

More importantly than "finding an API I am willing to pay for" is the reliability behind that API. Building on top of a third-party API requires trust, and once you've done it a couple of times, being able to trust the interface is maybe 90% of the decision-making on which API provider to pick, where the functionality itself is maybe 10% (unless I can self-host the API, of course).

Third-party risk is the biggest problem with APIs. The amount of calls I've been in where a third-party provider tried to sell their API and told me they don't need versioning right now, they will "try to" pre-announce breaking changes, they don't have an SLA or uptime commitment, etc. etc. is way too many. It's so hard to find an API provider that seems to be trustworthy enough to build a product on top of it.

I feel like there's a magic number of salaried positions that need to be tied to an API provider, to ensure it's both dynamic enough to react to generational changes in networking/security/etc. but also slow enough to not keep throwing everything overboard whenever a new framework or middle-manager comes along.