A monetizing trend
Ever since the Marketing/Legal people because aware of APIs they've been thinking of a way to monetize them. Its obviously prime territory for an IP land grab but you do get the impression that what they'd really like is the virtual equivalent of a coin mechanism on each API call -- pop a coin into the slot, you get to use the API or those particular calls.
It seems that greed has no bounds.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
