How API Throttling Hurts Developer Trust

Episode 62 of The Developer Tools Podcast. Lucas and Luna dig into why aggressive API throttling, intended to protect infrastructure, often backfires by eroding developer trust. They examine the case of a major cloud provider's 2025 throttling incident that caused widespread outages for third-party apps, and contrast it with a fintech API that uses graduated backpressure instead of hard limits. The hosts discuss the trade-offs between rate limiting and throttling, and propose a design pattern—latency-based throttling with clear feedback—that balances system stability with developer experience. They also explore how documentation and error messaging around throttling can make or break the developer relationship. A practical episode for anyone building or consuming APIs that need to handle spikes without alienating users. #APIThrottling #DeveloperTrust #RateLimiting #Backpressure #CloudProvider #FintechAPI #APIErrorMessages #GraduatedThrottling #LatencyBased #SystemStability #DeveloperExperience #APIDesign #Infrastructure #TechIncident #APIResilience #BusinessAndTechnology #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo