It's like how, in 2003, if your restaurant had a website with a phone number posted on it, you were ahead of the curve. Today, if your restaurant doesn't have a website with online ordering, you're going to miss out on potential customers.
API developers will largely find something else to do. I've never seen a job posting for an API developer. My intuition is that even today, the number of people who work specifically as an API developer for their whole career is pretty close to zero.