In the late 20th century, scientists began to flirt with proof that there is dark matter in our universe. As we learned that as much as 96% of the mass of the universe is represented by something we cannot observe, we’re entering a new era of understanding about the nature of matter. However, the struggle in this field is that we only have a measurable knowledge that these things exist, and educated guesses about how much of the universe is comprised of this yet undescribed material.
Integrated software systems using few standards beyond HTTP, better known as Web APIs, now seem to have something in common with dark matter. There are far more organizations building private, or internal-only, APIs as opposed to public API programs. As an industry, this perspective can not be overlooked, and has the potential to change the way we think about developing APIs.
Image credit: http://cosmicweb.uchicago.edu/filaments.html