Rate limiting protects your APIs from inadvertent or malicious overuse by limiting how often each user can call the API. Without rate limiting, each user may make a request as often as they like, leading to “spikes” of requests that starve other consumers. Once enabled, rate limiting can only perform a fixed number of requests per second. A rate limiting algorithm helps automate the process. In the example chart, you can see how rate limiting blocks requests over time.

Apps are essentially technology products—products that aim to solve a problem for users. Design is a salient feature in all apps; it is how users understand, interact, and use a product. The less intuitive an app is in terms of design, the harder it is for its target audience to learn to use it. Poor design ultimately costs products their user-base. No one will return to an app that is hard to use, nor recommend an app that is difficult to understand and learn.