It is crazy to me how often people don't grok how to design software well.

1. The worst thing you can do is try to stuff too many things into one specification. So you want an API? That's great. What's that? You want a rigid set of types so that any tiny changes over time aren't compatible? You want to try to define every conceivable use case as a new call? You want to combine multiple elements from different domains into one flat set of functions? You don't have any hierarchy or inheritance? You don't support extensions?

2. The second-worst thing you can do is to force a whole lot of different people to go through a single standards body. So you want to support a thousand different 3rd party components. What's that? You want to require everyone get their adapter approved by one group? And there's only one supported adapter per 3rd party component?

If you're trying to feed an entire city, it's logistically incredibly difficult to try to do it all yourself. If instead you just define where food can be dropped off or picked up, and ask volunteers to bring their own food there whenever they can/want, now you don't have a logistical nightmare on your hands anymore. The tech alternative? Add support for "plugins", make the plugin interface incredibly loose/backwards-compatible/layered, and invite people to publish their own plugins. If you under-engineer it, it actually works better.