"JSON" became popular in the 90s. They were http requests which returned javascript which you would simply eval(). No need to write or import a parser, and it

"JSON" became popular in the 90s. They were http requests which returned javascript which you would simply eval(). No need to write or import a parser, and it is the same syntax as the language you're using, because it is the same language. In technology many things become popular not because how good (or bad) things are, but how easy to use something is.