Developers Don’t Care about Network APIs. They Need Them Nonetheless.

After several years of invites, I finally made it to Infobip’s SHIFT developer event this year. Sun. Balmy weather. Wine from the country that brought us Zinfandel. An opportunity to see how developers take to Network APIs. Put this all together and it really wasn’t a hard sell. 

As for that last bit, the story here in Zadar is straightforward: helping developers understand the power of Network APIs (and, obviously, Open Gateway), how easy it is to put them to use, and show off some examples. Now, more than ever, that’s an important story. But why is it key to a developer event?

Developers don’t care about Network APIs. 

Harsh, I know. But true. Developers want outcomes. Sure, some will geek out on the technical differences between one implementation vs. another. We love those folks. The passionate ones who code for fun on weekends. Most, however, just need to get work done and build functional, profitable apps in an easy and cost-effective way. If the rise of Vibe Coding brings increasingly less technical developers into the fold, then a focus on outcomes vs. implementation will only grow. 

Naturally, Open Gateway (the GSMA’s Network API initiative) is a big topic here at SHIFT; Infobip has been one of the biggest supporters and the success of Open Gateway will benefit from developers understanding the power of tapping into network capabilities. The fact remains, however, that developers shouldn't care about Network APIs as a technical solution more than what those APIs are trying to achieve. 

And, to that end, developers actually DO need to care. A lot. Whether or not they want to spend their off hours digging into the minutiae of how Open Gateway APIs work, the outcomes they want to accomplish depend on Network APIs…and a better understanding of how to use them. Don’t take my word for it. Consider the input of 1,000+ developers we surveyed this summer with an eye to understanding their Network API demands and understanding. 

• Scams, Scams, Scams. Protecting users from impersonation scams is the top capability required by the developers we talked with. The vast majority are involved with mobile and web apps, so maybe this isn’t surprising. But it’s #1 by a large margin. While there are incredible opportunities for Network APIs to support app quality (aka Quality on Demand), the momentum with anti-fraud and identity use cases has been dominant. Why? The costs of fraud – user experience and monetary – are significant and Network APIs represent an increasingly proven way to combat it.
• Mind the (Expertise) Gap. Marketing efforts from telcos, cloud players, and even my colleagues at the GSMA mean that most professional developers have some understanding of what Network APIs do. But do they know enough to make meaningful use of them? Well, for those who aren’t using Network APIs in projects, the main reason they blame is lack of internal expertise. If Network APIs can deliver important capabilities and internal expertise is holding them back, the requirement for awareness and upskilling is clear.
• A Cloud Fallacy. Ready for one more not so surprising revelation? Developers like working with public cloud providers…and that holds for Network API projects. They are the solution provider of choice. Unsurprising maybe (who doesn’t want a one-stop-shop) but potentially misguided. The major public cloud providers have been Open Gateway proponents from Day One, but less active than CPaaS providers, infra vendors, operators, and smaller integrators. Cloud providers play a critical role in the workflow of most developers, but relying on them to meet all your Network API needs may be shortsighted. 

The tagline for Shift 2025 is “Sun. Sea. Software.” It’s a great message in person, whether or not it will help you convince your manager to sponsor the trip. Network APIs are only one part of the agenda, but an incredibly important one. Important for Infobip who is invested in the technology, sure. More important, however, for the larger Network API ecosystem which needs developers to understand what’s possible, how to take advantage of Network API capabilities, see examples in action and solutions for enabling use cases.