Web scraping is pulling the HTML of a website down and parsing useful data out of it. The use-cases for this type of functionality are endless. Have a bunch of data on governmental sites that are only listed online in HTML without a download? There's an API for that! Do you want to keep abreast of what your competitors are featuring on their site? There's an API for that. Need alerts for changes on a website, for example enrollment is now open at your college and you want to be first to get in and avoid the 8am Monday morning course slot? There's an API for that.