It is very practical to restrict access to servers with API keys.

It's also possible to blow up a road

If you think that is a reasonable argument then it ought to be clear to anyone why I'm not meeting you "half way".

It is clear that API servers (not APIs) are not public goods because they are easily excludable (without requiring explosives), regardless of silliness over whether a server is more like "the internet" or a hammer. To be considered a public good requires that the good be both non-rivelrous and non-excludable. API servers are trivially excludable. Therefore not a public good. End of story.

Furthermore my opposition to unlimited free servers wide open derives mostly not from any economic definitions, but from how I've seen it have a negative effect on this particular ecosystem, as well as experience with a variety of blockchain projects. The healthiest and most robust ones have people running their own nodes, at least once their usage reaches the point when it is feasible to do so.

So, like I said, I think there is good that can come from making easy and cheap or free access to API servers available to small developers, just not wide open broadly to everyone on the internet who wants to use it.

That is my position on this proposal or ones like it.