Years ago I (and a handful of other folks) had a meeting with some people from American who were thinking about opening up their data via an API. One of the other attendees said something to the effect of, "software developers are very, very good at removing inefficiencies when given data like this." It was delicately phrased but the subtext was clearly a warning: if your business depends on asymmetry, an API can sink you. I guess they took that warning to heart.