[lupire]

You should not charge people just to access their own data. That's abusive.

Charge only for extreme usage, like poorly written sync programs, maybe, maybe for realtime synchronization.

Let them access their data so they are comfortable using your product more, and charge them for the value your product gives them.

[thekiptxt]

Abusive? I know that HN has a very pro FOSS culture, which, with some users, seems to extend to the expectation that companies and products should exist out of the goodness of developers’ hearts. But charging willing users for an API that costs money to maintain is “abusive”?

[Nullabillity]

> I know that HN has a very pro FOSS culture,

Err, what? I don't think we've read the same thread. It's shock-full of people trying to justify this kind of behaviour, presumably in a vain effort to feel less bad about their own abuses.

> seems to extend to the expectation that companies and products should exist out of the goodness of developers’ hearts.

Corporate shills and bootlickers seem to have this weird misconception that companies and products just naturally deserve to exist and impose themselves on society.

> But charging willing users for an API that costs money to maintain is “abusive”?

The API already exists.

[malfist]

You absolutely should charge people for access to their data. What do you think paying for s3 retrievals or db queries are?

[doix]

But s3 retrievals cost money regardless of if you use the API or something else. You don't pay extra you use the browser vs uploading through their UI (not that anyone uses their UI).

Charging users to use an API when you don't charge them to use the website is _pretty bad_. If it's B2B, they might just suck it up and pay. But if it's B2C, don't be surprised if someone makes an "unofficial API" that's free.

[lupire]

Not the same thing at all. db queries are a computation service. S3 is literally renting storage, not an app.

[malfist]

Retrieving your data is absolutely a computation service too. And S3 is renting storage, but you also pay for retrievals as well as storage.