When Uber launched, they didn't build their own mapping system. When Stripe started, they didn't create their own banking infrastructure. When Instagram began, they didn't develop their own photo storage solution. But every trading card app still starts by rebuilding the same databases from scratch. This isn't just inefficient—it's actively preventing entire categories of innovation that could transform how we collect, trade, and think about cards.

Every month, trading card developers collectively waste thousands of hours rebuilding the same basic infrastructure that already exists behind proprietary walls. But the real cost isn't just measured in developer time—it's in the innovation that never happens. When building basic functionality requires recreating an entire card database from scratch, revolutionary ideas die in the planning phase.

Building a weather app in 2025? You don't create your own meteorology department. Building a maps app? You don't launch satellites. But building a trading card app? You better prepare to manually enter data for thousands of cards and hundreds of sets. The absurdity isn't that this data doesn't exist - it's been collected, verified, and refined across countless platforms. The problem is that despite living in the API economy, trading card data remains trapped in isolated silos.