API updates proposal

[howardchung]

Some proposals for changes to help prevent abuse and keep things sustainable:

• Require an API key or login for /request endpoint: Require login or API key for requests #2696
  • For free non-subscribing users, also add a limit of 3 requested parses per day (what's a reasonable amount?)
• All calls are currently billed at $0.0001 per call. But some endpoints are more expensive than others, so maybe:
  • /request call = 10 calls?
  • /players/*/refresh call = 5 calls?
  • /players/*/matches = 3 calls?
  • /explorer = 5 calls?
  • We already have increased costs for explorer and request for rate limiting purposes. . . but not billing.
• We haven't updated our API pricing since 2018. Maybe we need to add inflation adjustment?
• Change the monthly 50k API limit to a 2k daily limit. That way we don't lock out IPs for an entire month

cc @albertcui

[ddgryaz]

Greetings @howardchung ! I read your message in this thread and in the adjacent one here - #2696

I understand perfectly well what a high load is placed on your servers. I (and I think many other developers) would like you to find a way to leave the ability to call endpoints without requiring a login or API key.

Perhaps you should really move from the monthly free call limit (50k) to the daily limit (1.5k-2k?)

Or set smaller limits on the daily limit of some individual endpoint calls? But due to this, it will be possible to use the API without authorization.

The application I'm working on also uses a call to players/*/matches once per data request, and multiple calls to /constants/(items or hero).

It would be very cool if you found such an opportunity. Thank you for your work!

[howardchung]

The proposal would only require login/key for the request endpoint specifically.