"going through the iterative process of getting it functioning and fixing bugs was pretty invigorating."
Damn right it is! Writing scrapers is definitely the gateway drug of programming. It's such an exciting feeling to step across the boundaries from "passive user at the mercy of the UI" to "I can do anything if I can conceptualise it (and break it up into steps)".
You summed up what dragged me from "Sure I'll learn to program a notepad or todo app so I can learn, but I won't" to "I can do anything if I think about what I want first, then how to get it!"
+1. Writing scrapers and even API calls were the step for me that went from "I'm making my computer do something" to "I'm making my computer do something that's interacting with the outside world on terms that I programmed it to. Whoa! I can do a lot of different variations of this!"
For me it was writing MIRC scripts that monitored the IRC channels I was in. So it was scrapping the content, but not nearly as elegant as what the OP mentioned.
Damn right it is! Writing scrapers is definitely the gateway drug of programming. It's such an exciting feeling to step across the boundaries from "passive user at the mercy of the UI" to "I can do anything if I can conceptualise it (and break it up into steps)".