If I understand correctly, REST was formalized by Roy Fielding as a *descriptive* model of the architecture of the web. AFAIK Fielding didn't claim REST was any good, he was just describing the de-facto architecture of the web. The web had already at this point proven an enormous successful distributed hypertext system, so this kind of validates REST as a successful architecture for the domain of distributed hypermedia primarily navigated and consumed by humans.

REST web services was created by applying REST architecture to API's. But is there actually any reason to think REST is a desirable architecture for this domain? Is there any evidence that say HATEOS is a beneficial design principle for machine-to-machine communication?