You need one place a developer can land and get everything: what the API does, how to authenticate, how to get credentials, what it costs, how to test it, where the reference is, how to get help, whether it is currently working, and what changed recently. Call it a portal or call it a documentation site — the label is not the point.
A portal tells you an enormous amount about the organization behind it. A current one with a live change log, working examples and a real support channel signals a team that is present. A portal with a copyright date three years old, dead links, and a contact form nobody answers signals the opposite, and developers read that signal instantly and accurately.
Zombie portals are the specific failure worth naming: the portal that still exists, still ranks in search, still accepts signups, and is attached to an API nobody maintains. It is worse than no portal, because it actively recruits people into a dead end.
So the real requirement is not the software. It is ownership — someone whose job includes keeping this current — and honesty about what is and is not maintained.
