Textual interfaces enforce decoupling. In a lispy system, with richer interfaces, you can couple your apps and functions as tightly as you want. In Unix, the textual interchange limits you.
However, if you have more complex data to send, text may be problematic. And if you're going to send structured data via text, you need a standard, easily parsable format so that people can easily parse your data without having to roll their own, incredibly buggy, parser. JSON and DSV are both easy to parse, and so those are the formats people use, like it or not. And no, it's not inconsistant. It wouldn't be so easy to parse if it was.
Also, I have never seen a tool with -m. Maybe it's because I'm running Linux.
However, if you have more complex data to send, text may be problematic. And if you're going to send structured data via text, you need a standard, easily parsable format so that people can easily parse your data without having to roll their own, incredibly buggy, parser. JSON and DSV are both easy to parse, and so those are the formats people use, like it or not. And no, it's not inconsistant. It wouldn't be so easy to parse if it was.
Also, I have never seen a tool with -m. Maybe it's because I'm running Linux.