Even with a binary format, you have a lot of options. gRPC has plans for binary logging, which Stubby has had for a decade or more. Google's Stubby clients and

Even with a binary format, you have a lot of options. gRPC has plans for binary logging, which Stubby has had for a decade or more. Google's Stubby clients and servers also have built-in HTTP handlers that let you do a lot of interactive debugging, like the /debug/requests interface in golang's net/trace package. Unexpectedly, I found that a much better troubleshooting experience than pouring through logs (also because logs don't capture everything).