Why JSON Won the API War
For decades, XML (eXtensible Markup Language) was the standard for APIs (SOAP). However, REST APIs overwhelmingly shifted to JSON for two primary reasons:
1. **Payload Size**: JSON's lack of closing tags drastically reduces the byte size of data transferred over the wire.
2. **Parsing Velocity**: Browsers parse JSON natively using Highly optimized `JSON.parse()` routines directly into memory arrays/objects.
Minification for Edge Environments
In high-performance edge environments, stripping whitespace from JSON payloads (minification) before network transit can further reduce size by 15-30% depending on the nesting depth.