All of crypto has a fundamental problem.
When twitter first came out, it was heavily API driven.
It had a free, open access API.
That was in fact one of the core ideas of the whole service.
Copilot:
🕰️ Twitter’s Early API Philosophy
In its earliest days, Twitter was designed as a microblogging service with a public API that allowed developers to build third-party apps, bots, and analytics tools.
The Twitter Developer Blog and early coverage from sites like ReadWrite and TechCrunch described the platform as a “developer playground,” emphasizing openness and extensibility.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and early team members spoke about the API as a way to decentralize innovation — letting others create experiences around the core service.
📰 Notable Early Mentions
A 2007 ReadWrite article titled “Twitter’s API: The Secret Sauce” described how the API was driving Twitter’s popularity, with apps like TweetDeck and Twitterific emerging from this openness.
Twitter’s own blog posts from 2006–2008 (archived on the Wayback Machine) encouraged developers to “hack on Twitter” and showcased community-built tools.
The API was so central that Twitter’s growth was often attributed to third-party developers, not just internal features.
API
Open APIs were the hype in 2006.
Traffic was cheap and I guess they expected the cost to shrink even further over time.
Twitter has no open API anymore today.
Because it was too expensive, basically.
Almost all APIs use a token system today.
BTC
BTC relies on open API.
It's the nodes: They are costly to operate and don't generate income.
This has already been noticed and adressed many times.
Hive
For Hive, the problem is much more important.
Hive's whole idea is based around an open, free API, too.
(the 'full nodes', or 'api nodes')
Hive just has many more features and data than BTC...
This is why blocktrades put so much work into HAF or HAFA or whatever the thing is called, that noone uses...
This is why the API is poorly documented.
Because the API itself is too expensive.
This is the only explanation left at this point.
They don't want you to use it, because it's expensive.
Witness
No: A witness node is NOT an api node.
'Running a witness' does not mean to share an API endpoint.
That would be a totally different machine and more expensive.
Frontend
Frontends like peakd, ecency, etc. are (for the most part) just providing the interface.
The data you load when you browse posts or check your wallet is provided by an API node.
Profit
There is no profit to be made by running an open API node.
Some witnesses provide nodes, most don't.
Scaling
The way it works right now, Hive can not scale limitlessly.
Twitter can not afford that shit.
How could the witnesses?
RC
We got ressource credits to prevent spam on chain.
The cost to provide API access though is de-centralized; Every operator has to figure out how to pay that bill, prevent attacks and such things.
Conclusion
This is a fundamental problem.
We got good incentives to make sure signing the blocks works well.
21 witnesses proof of stake and all that is well thought out and makes sure that signing the blocks correctly gets rewarded.
Providing node access openly on the web is not being paid though and could become really expensive really quickly, if this chain ever got mass-adopted...
There are ways to solve this. But it can not be solved on chain...
...
There are a few people, who could actually reply to this, but they are at Hivefest right now.
I hope they are having a good time.
I have much more to write on this, but I am not in the mood to continue.
I'd have to expand on why the biggest part of HAF is useless.
I've hacked together something better, entirely.
I am not prepared to have that discussion, yet, though.
i am no tech guy in the sense of understanding it on the higher scale, and i do think you are right about the cost of running it, but i thought X stopped the free API because they wanted to stop data mining and knew they can earn money by selling the access?
and to earn from all the bots :)
...then they turned something that was expensive and risky into something safer and a revenue stream.
Twitter was just an example. At that time open APIs were the hype and everybody just assumed it would scale.
My impression is that even Satoshi thought those cost were trivial.
(and I can't think of a way to make it work without open access to an API endpoint)
Judging by what our devs focused on the last years, and how they gatekeep the API, it seems to be their main concern.