Readit NewsCORS is a lot less strict around GET as it is supposed to be safe.
CORS prevents reading from a resource, not from sending the request.
If you find that surprising, think about that the JS could also have for example created a form with the vote page as the target and clicked on the submit button. All completely unrelated to CORS.
The story url only would have to point to a web page that creates the upvote post request via JS.
Using GET also circumvents browser security stuff like CORS, because again the browser assumes GET never mutates.
Reading your original comment I was thinking "Sure, as long as you have a good reason of doing it this way anything goes" but I realized that you prefer to do it this way because you don't know any better.
Use cookies and auth params like HN does for the upvote link. Not HTTP methods.
REST-API's then are especially suited for acting as a gateway to a database, to easily CRUD and fetch lists of information.
The best API's I've seen mix and match both patterns. RESTful API endpoints for data, "function call" endpoints for often-used actions like voting, bulk actions and other things that the client needs to be able to do, but you want the API to be in control of how it is applied.
/draw_point?x=7&y=20&r=255&g=0&b=0
/get_point?x=7&y=20
/delete_point?x=7&y=20
This is also how HN does it:
/vote?id=44507373&how=up&auth=...For example in the next few years if Operating System companies and PC producers make small local models stock standards to improve the operating system functions and other services. This local LLM engine layer can be used by browser applications too and that being done through WASM without having to write Javascript and using WASM sandboxed layer to safely expose the this system LLM Engine Layer.
You're suggesting an actual API-facilitated data sync via Dropbox? Sure, but at that point why? Unless the data also needs to be read by 3rd party applications, might as well host it myself.
See this post for example:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22761897
Quotes:
"Voting ring detection has been one of HN's priorities for over 12 years"
"I've personally spent hundreds of hours working on this"