I was perusing Twitter the other day, and this post jumped out at me:
So I checked out the list at https://github.com/toddmotto/public-apis
Over the years I have used a lot of free API’s to get data, and it was interesting to see this consolidated list of free data sources. There has never been a better time to be a developer than now.
Granted, this list contains a lot of silly data (I’m talking about you – Game of Thrones API) but I foresee an explosion of more free data. If this list proves at least one thing, people will put work into publishing work on the internet with no guarantee of compensation. It is economically irrational behavior, but it goes to show that money may not be the only thing to motivate productive behavior.
Conceivably, with today’s client site coding advancements through the use of javascript frameworks, and all this freely available data, anyone could build decent apps that just run on the local browser. And instead of having to host that app on some webserver somewhere, you could just email it to friends and others who may want to use your app.
So if nothing else, this reinforces my belief that the internet is a force for good. The internet gets a bad rap for encouraging anti-social and hateful behavior, so lets at least acknowledge some of the great work people are doing for free.