The adage "The simplest things that could possibly work" comes to mind. For many things JSON is good enough. Going with JSON first makes sense, if you need to

The adage "The simplest things that could possibly work" comes to mind. For many things JSON is good enough. Going with JSON first makes sense, if you need to create an alternate more efficient protocol in the future you'll at least have a few more data points to use when selecting something new like msgpack/protobuffers/thrift or whatever.