The concept of electronic data interchange was concieved in the early days of computer networking.
As technology advanced, a need for a universal human-readable format to facilitate ubiquitous data interchange was slowly arising.
The accelerating growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web turned this need into a pressing matter.
XML, “originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing”, was repurposed to address the issue.
Because XML was not purpose-built, it was not an optimal solution.
Thus, at the turn of the millenium, JSON emerged as a more minimal and suitable solution, successfully reducing the accidental complexity of XML.
In the last decade JSON rose to domination in the domain of data interchange, displacing XML.