A step in the wrong direction, in my opinion. It’s public, so to hide it behind an api seems misleading.

It’s all public data. Lemmy clients don’t let you see it, though, but there might be some exceptions. Other platforms like kbin/mbin just let you view the votes for any post or comment.

Sounds like they might just be an asshole. Maybe remind them that all of their upvotes and downvotes are public.

To be fair, those Windows directories might have a space in them and break things anyway.