When you design your APIs, you put a paradigm into depending who will be your user. I know for example a Hotel booking API which for the same resources expose 3 differents API depending on their final users.

They have one design for airplane tickets services (which requires sector-specific naming standards), one other for other Hotel booking sites and a last one for long tail developers. It is the same ressources but 3 differents APIs for exposing it, because they know their user needs.

I just think that when you design your API before knowing your user/customers, your users will be as you said in the article "not who you think they are"

A famous chinese proverb: "if you don't know where you are going, you will always arrive in a wrong place"

Edit : that resumes the issue I'm talking http://apijoy.tumblr.com/post/51977839347/when-you-didnt-exp...