As a serialization format, JSON is horrible. Way too loose regarding formatting and way too much noise. All that is typically needed is a standard text format for relational data. I.e. a fixed CSV.
The only "advantage" to JSON is that it maps directly to the object trees most developers use in their scripted programs (which is misguided IMHO).
Not sure I would call CSV a "standard text format" - I've seen many many problems over the years with badly formed CSV files and bad Unicode handling. CSV appears to be an "almost standard" where 98% of the time it is fine and the remaining 2% are an utter nightmare.
Yes, CSV in the wild is an absolute mess. It was made an RFC standard at some point but even that was quite unclear if I recall correctly. That's why I wrote "a fixed CSV".
The only "advantage" to JSON is that it maps directly to the object trees most developers use in their scripted programs (which is misguided IMHO).