alt Hacker NewsI think of it like this:
/users/ returns a 404 in an API means that this resource does not exist. As in, this is not a part of the API.
/users/123 returns a 404 means this user record does not exist.
Yes this means that a 404 is context dependent but in a way that makes it easier for a human to think of and reason about.
Yes, and this is obvious if /users/ exists and returns a 400 if the ID is required. That way you can tell the difference between /users/ being there and expecting and ID, and it not being there.