The problem is not XML vs. JSON. This is not about choosing the format to store a node app's configuration. This is about an entire corpus of standards, protocols that depend on this. The root problem for me is:

1) Google doing whatever they want with matters that affect every single human on the planet.

2) Google running a farse with "public feedback" program where they don't actually listen, or in this case ask for feedback after the fact.

3) Google not being truthful or introspective about the reasons for such a change, especially when standardized alternatives have existed for years.

4) Honestly, so much of standard, interoperable "web tech" has been lost to Chrome's "web atrocities" and IE before that... you'd think we've learned the lesson to "never again" have a dominant browser engine in the hands of a "for profit" corp.

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rapnie 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, this is the real issue, and it is a pity so many comments delve into json vs. xml and not on the title stating that "google is killing the open web". A new stage of the web is forming where Big Tech AI isn't just chatbots, but matured to offer fully operational end-to-end services. All AI-operated and served, up to tailor-made domain-specific UI. Then the corporations, winners in their market, don't have a need for open web anymore to slurp data from. All open web data absorbed, now fresh human creativity flows in exclusively via these service, directly feeding the AI systems.

	▲	quietbritishjim 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		There are a lot of comments focusing more on the specifics of XML and XSLT because that's what much of the article laboriously drones on about, despite its general title.

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StopDisinfo910 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The narrative would be more compelling to me if Google didn’t fail to impose their technology on the web so many times.

NaCL? Mozilla won this one. Wasm is a continuation of asm.js.

Dart? It now compiles to Wasm but has mostly failed to replace js while Typescript filled the niche.

Sure, Google didn’t care much for XML. They had a proper replacement for communication and simple serialisation internally in protobuf which they never actually try to push for web use. Somehow json ended up becoming the standard.

I personally don’t give much credit to the theory of Google as a mastermind patiently under minding the open web for years via the standards.

Now if we talk about how they have been pushing Chrome through their other dominant products and how they have manipulated their own products to favour it, I will gladly agree that there is plenty to be said.

	▲	int_19h 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> NaCL? Mozilla won this one. Wasm is a continuation of asm.js. And yet the design of wasm is the way it is to a large extent because of V8 limitations and Google's pushback on having to do any substantial changes for the sake of a clean design.
	▲	kbelder a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Amp pages' miserable failure. There's a lot of Google failures.