| There is no ethical obligation to "consume a service as it is intended", though arguably there IS an obligation for services to provide means for users to use them as they desire. Even early on, there were graphical browsers, text mode browsers, tools like wget and curl (not everyone had access to a graphical desktop!). Services like AltaVista allowed one to approach the web in yet another way, spidering the web and surfacing information through full-text-search that couldn't be found through just surfing. And this is before we get to people with visual impairments using screen-readers or braille terminals. Or folks connecting to the internet over expensive satellite or infrequent wifi who might want to batch their web-fetches and read in their own time. As far as I'm concerned you're just continuing that tradition with more modern tools. Semantic tools. Carry on. Put your tools on a git site someplace if you'd like to share! ps. see also the exploits of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_%22Kibo%22_Parry (he grepped the entire usenet feed for mentions of his name, and allegedly always answered) . Use your powers for good! (see eg altairprime's comment for a definition of 'good' https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48260183 ) pps. if I want to telnet info.cern.ch 80 I should still darn well be able to! Uphill, both ways, in driving snow! ppps. https://line-mode.cern.ch/www/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html <- eg using a line mode browser. |