Well, if using the system... it makes serialization far less complex in terms of normalization. You can serialize/deserialize through what have become relatively standard libraries for pretty much every language under the sun. This can be utilized in/out of class/record based representations of the data in your language of choice, and acted upon directly. The use of HTTP is as sensible as anything else, as the HTTP actions and paths align relatively well to resource endpoints as well as a text based protocol.

The abstractions and libraries available make this easier... if you look at IMAP it's byzantine by comparison.