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Comment by julien | Hacker News Reader

It should be noted that in general APIs are a modern form of slavery! Build something that depends on an API, and be exposed to any arbitrary decision by this API provider. I think Twitter's decision to shut down HTTP basic Auth (in favor of OAuth, which is great) is a perfect example of this.

I wish more services would implement open protocols, agreed upon standards than just proprietary APIs.

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It should be noted that in general APIs are a modern form of slavery!

I think that's a little over the top, nobody is forcing anyone to use their API. If you rely on an API, you should accept that it can (and likely will) change in the future.

Twitter has been pretty up front about the fact that HTTP Basic would be shut off since they first released OAuth. I think they've done just about as much as they can to help people move away from HTTP Basic.

I wish more services would implement open protocols, agreed upon standards than just proprietary APIs.

I'm not sure what you mean by open protocols and agreed upon standards. HTTP Basic and OAuth are both open and agreed upon.

HTTP APIs typically use slightly different parameters, so there is no existing support, as opposed to an established protocol, such as email.

I've read that sentence like 5 times, and it still doesn't parse. I have no idea what you're trying to say there.

The term I've seen used is 'software sharecropping.' I think it was coined by Tim Bray: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePla...

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