Well, isn't still type-safe then? If every field is optional, then a zero byte message is a totally valid message. The issue is that every field is optional, an

Well, isn't still type-safe then? If every field is optional, then a zero byte message is a totally valid message. The issue is that every field is optional, and there are no required fields at all. I'm very annoyed that all fields are optional. Which means I have to do additional validation on server side and in a language like rust it's double annoying because now you have `T` or `Option<T>` and it's confusing for some types: - `string` will be rust's `String` except it is an empty string by default - All "custom" types are `Option<T>` even if that makes no sense semantically So now you have to check if a string is empty, which I guess is technically a string anyway. However, now you have no idea, it is an empty string as a value or lack of value? You end up wrapping `string` into a `StringValue` and now linter is complaining that you shouldn't use those. Overall parser for protobuf messages got simpler, but now enforcing safety is on server's implementation.