> How is it even remotely sane to provide a user interface instead of an API/protocol?
It's the way of the world. 20 years ago we had NNTP, POP, and IMAP, and you could read them all with Gnus, customized with finely-tuned filtering and killfiles. But it's hard to "unlock value" from these things, so then there were ad-strewn forums, and now SaaS abominations, because how dare you not change your mail client when its developer thinks you should?
It's the way of the world. 20 years ago we had NNTP, POP, and IMAP, and you could read them all with Gnus, customized with finely-tuned filtering and killfiles. But it's hard to "unlock value" from these things, so then there were ad-strewn forums, and now SaaS abominations, because how dare you not change your mail client when its developer thinks you should?