Standards like this enable new value, but make it harder for newcomers. Worse, they add a lot of burdensome work in situations where implementation or compliance is demanded of developers.

Complexity-enabling standards are often a sign that a funky, little nook of software is maturing. It is a sign of huge success, too, because new layers are beckoning to lay on top of an old layer.

We had a good run with REST and JSON, which managed to hold back corporate software engineering culture -- represented in standards like SOAP and WSDL -- for a very long time. No doubt there is a future even with "complexification", but I think that new alternatives will come soon into the fray.