I’m getting an ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE when trying to reach http://worldtimeapi.org/api/timezone/etc/UTC.txt (used in the code example @ 10. Brief Tour of the Standard Library — Python 3.13.1 documentation).
Also, according to worldtimeapi status page, there’s been quite some downtime in the last month.
Is it a known issue?
Would it not be more reliable to use some dummy HTTP service, like HTTPbin?
http://worldtimeapi.org/pages/faqs#commercial-apps
The existence of a URL in an example doesn’t imply the Python community has any responsibility for it.
The status page is https://status.worldtimeapi.org and says it was only up for 15.48% of the last month.
Yes, let’s update the example to something more reliable. We want new users to be able to follow the tutorial without stumbling over things like this.
Is there something a little more interesting than HTTPbin? We could use the Star Wars API or Pokémon API, but it might be nice to stick to a plain text response instead of using JSON?
This doesn’t even load for me 
No, but we have responsibility for our docs and want them to be useful, and especially don’t want new learners to turn away and give up when our examples don’t work.
Oof.
A quick search brought up this:
https://monty-pythons-flying-api.fly.dev/v1/quotes/random
It’s JSON, but it’s pretty-printed, so a line-by-line approach has some value.