The irony is that all the "not particularly loved" technologies that have been built around xml are not really optional. They solve concrete problems and if on

The irony is that all the "not particularly loved" technologies that have been built around xml are not really optional. They solve concrete problems and if one wants to start fresh with something like JSON they need to be reinvented. Once all the functionality is replicated its quite likely that the cognitive difficulty of mastering it all is - more or less - the same. Lets also not forget that tech in all its forms has been quite democratized in the last decade. Corporate and academic environments do not always care about removing needless hoops and may even have incentives to keep things arcane and less accessible