Streaming is about to be the standard

🧠 We’ve been streaming video, audio, and HTML for decades — but never objects. That’s about to change.

✅ The Need for Progressive JSON

LLMs & Generative Systems: LLMs generate output token-by-token. Waiting for a full JSON object delays UX and breaks responsiveness.

Real-Time UIs: Dashboards, assistants, IDEs benefit from structured partial updates (vs. raw text).

Data-at-the-Edge: On edge/serverless APIs, latency compounds. Streaming JSON reduces perceived delay.

You can’t stream standard JSON safely—JSON doesn’t allow trailing commas or partial values.

🚫 Why Hasn’t JSON Been Streamed Until Now?

JSON wasn't made for streaming. It’s a full object format.

In contrast:

HTML is naturally streamable—browsers render partial DOM.

Media (audio, video) uses chunking (codecs, headers).

Images support progressive encoding (e.g. JPEG progressive).

So why not JSON?

1. Parsers: Most require a complete object.

2. Tooling: Only recently have good stream parsers emerged (clarinet, oboe.js, streaming-json-parser).

3. Use case: REST APIs were blocking and small. Even GraphQL wasn’t stream-first until Live Queries and @defer.

✅ What Changed?

Now streamable structured output is a UX necessity:

LLMs emit { "type": "function_call", "name": "search", "args": { ... } } piece by piece

React Server Components stream JSON (RSC Flight format)

SSR/Partial hydration: shell first, hydrate later

Edge/Serverless: streaming hides cold starts and TTFB

✅ Tech Already Adopting Progressive JSON

OpenAI Chat API (stream: true) returns { "delta": ... } lines via NDJSON

React Server Components: custom JSON stream protocol

Next.js App Router: streaming server data

Bun/Deno: runtime-level streaming Fetch

gRPC-Web / tRPC: chunked streaming patterns

WebTransport, HTTP/2, HTTP/3: native stream transport

⚠️ Problems Still Unsolved

JSON isn’t stream-safe: half a number or string breaks parsing

Needs NDJSON, envelopes, or framing

HTTP/1.1 + chunked: hard to cache

Axios/Fetch: buffer by default

TypeScript + partial schemas: hard to type/validate

🔥 So Is This Web 3.5?

It’s not Web3 (blockchain) or Web 2.0 (social) — but:

"Interactive, streamable, structured, AI-powered UI over modern transports"

Progressive JSON is key to that shift.

Impacts:

API design (NDJSON, yield, generators)

UI architecture (suspense, partial components)

Middleware (stream transforms)

Tooling (stream parsers, schema inference)

We’re not building websites anymore. We’re building stream-based UI machines.