I intend to publish an API. What can I do to reassure developers that I won't behave like this if they build on my platform? Charge money?
In fact, charging money might make it all the more insulting if/when a company later does something to piss off its developer community.
Platform integration is a risk, but I think it's better to take that risk than not pursue an idea because some day the platform will cut you off from the API.
True, but I'm not just speculating here, I really DO want to release an API from a big company and have it taken seriously and trusted by the development community.
Let me try answering my own question. One thing I could do would be to publish a statement guaranteeing access to the API for the next 5 years. Perhaps people would find that reassuring. I suspect that our legal department would have a problem with it -- it would prevent us from making changes if we needed to... perhaps even from fixing a vital security flaw.
Maybe something weaker, like publishing a policy detailing the process for deprecating APIs? The process could say that deprecated APIs will continue to be supported for at least a year. It could also specify an exception for security issues. Would this reassure developers?