title: REST API, why no HTML instead of JSON?
body: <p>This is probably a stupid idea, but I would like to know why.</p>
  
  <p>I'm reading about REST API's, and principles such as HATEOAS. All the time, I'm wondering why people don't just use HTML for the representation of their resources. </p>
  
  <p>Sure, I can think of disadvantages such as parsing difficulties and increased data, but on the other hand, it's a semantical hypermedia language with which you can separate data from presentation. Also, it's human readable and people can interact with it in the browser, follow links, submit forms, etc. It could be used as both an API and UI.</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone explain why it is a terrible idea to use HTML for REST API representations?</p>