I think you're missing a little historical context here, but maybe you were already more experienced back then than I was, for example (which means your bubble

I think you're missing a little historical context here, but maybe you were already more experienced back then than I was, for example (which means your bubble was in the know and the unwashed masses weren't). I started making websites in 1998 and earning money with it in 2001ish (that's the year Wikipedia launched) and imho back then it was a lot harder to find the 'correct' way with teaching yourself. I saw REST/RESTful and best practices for the web mostly develop after 2005-2008 (yeah, around the time there was the great Rails exodus as well) and people started to standardize more. What I'm trying to say is that it was all more the Wild West in web development and by the time people had more insight, the naming/switch to JSON had already begun. I also don't remember when I read the REST dissertation first, probably only much later than 2001.