I'm not sure why this post gets boosted every few years- and unfortunately (as many have pointed out) the author demonstrates here that they do not understand distributed system design, nor how to use protocol buffers. I have found them to be one of the most useful tools in modern software development when used correctly. Not only are they much faster than JSON, they prevent the inevitable redefinition of nearly identical code across a large number of repos (which is what i've seen in 95% of corporate codebases that eschew tooling such as this). Sure, there are alternatives to protocol buffers, but I have not seen them gain widespread adoption yet.