O API Marketplace, Where Art Thou?

My personal opinion is that the authors concerns are well thought out from the API developer perspective, but that the scenario on the seller side needs a bit of critical reality checking. After all, we can assume that Mashape and Mashery and the rest did not set out to create crappy API services. At the same time, we shouldn't assume that just because Factual and InfoChimps exist that they have a well defined business model that stands a chance of making significant amounts of money in the long term. It's important not to confuse motion with action.

Anyhow, my biggest problem with the idea of an iTunes for APIs or an iTunes for data is that there's little evidence to suggest that this is the correct metaphor for anything except small impulse consumables like music, books and apps.

After all, nobody impulse purchases a complex API license. There's rather profound difference between:

buying the right to query an API 10 million times for non-pornographic uses in the USA (but not Hawaii or Alaska) that expire in March 2012 and count as credit towards a more expensive volume license as long as the upgrade happens by July 2011 and then building an application and launching it as a startup to recoup your investment....

vs.

buying the new Strokes album on your iPod and going for a run.

Otherwise, we'd already see people buying cars and houses and vacations through iTunes or something like it. I mean, hey — if you can make it work, I'll be a customer. I just suspect that it's a thankless, low-margin sales-centric middle man company with highly opinionated and price conscious developers as your primary customer. No thanks!

the fact that this link has been posted by Mashape's founder just makes the whole thing even more ambiguous.