[overbroad]

But why even place the burden on the content producer to create these formats? Why not just establish a practice of raw feeds and let consumers write their own parsers? (I can imagine where consumers write parsers and put the code on Github.) Clearly, consumers are willing to do some work with respect to the data they seek, they will be doing some bulk manipulation of it, else they would not be ready to jump through hoops like "API keys".

My favorite data is raw file on FTP servers, i.e. bulk data. For me, it is the easiest to work with. I can translate it to XML or JSON if I want to, but many times I do not even need to go through that intermediary step to get what I want. If others wanted the data in, say, JSON, I'd be happy to share my parsers with them. I'd bet others would too.

I think Tom's point was "Cut the BS, and just give us the damn data, already." (Correct me if I'm wrong, Tom.) And I think he is spot on. This API nonsense has gotten out of hand.